Musicianship facilitates the processing of Western music chords-An ERP and behavioral study

Peer reviewe

Mindsets and Failures : Neural Differences in Reactions to Mistakes among 2nd Grade Finnish Girls

Mindsets have been identified as an important factor in explaining learning differences among students. Growth mindset students have been shown to recover from mistakes easier than fixed mindset students, and recent neuroscientific research has shown differences in the brain’s event-related potentials to errors in fixed and growth mindset participants. The purpose of this study was to examine and evaluate these differences in the Finnish elementary school context. To achieve this, event-related potentials of five fixed and five growth mindset 8-9-year-old female students were recorded during a go/no-go task. Differences between the two groups emerged, however, they were different from the results of some previous studies in the field. These findings are discussed in the light of earlier neuroscientific research related to mindsets, including limitations and suggestions for future research in the field.Peer reviewe

Maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with neonatal auditory ERPs

Poor maternal sleep quality during pregnancy may act as a prenatal stress factor for the fetus and associate with neonate neurocognition, for example via fetal programming. The impacts of worsened maternal sleep on neonatal development and, more specifically on neonatal auditory brain responses, have not been studied. A total of 155 mother-neonate dyads drawn from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study participated in our study including maternal self-report questionnaires on sleep at gestational week 24 and an event-related potential (ERP) measurement among 1-2-day-old neonates. For sleep quality assessment, the Basic Nordic Sleep Questionnaire (BNSQ) was used and calculated scores for (1) insomnia, (2) subjective sleep loss and (3) sleepiness were formed and applied in the analyses. In the auditory ERP protocol, three emotionally uttered pseudo words (in happy, angry and sad valence) were presented among neutrally uttered pseudo words. To study the relations between prenatal maternal sleep quality and auditory emotion-related ERP responses, mixed-effects regression models were computed for early (100-200 ms) and late (300-500 ms) ERP response time-windows. All of the selected BNSQ scores were associated with neonatal ERP responses for happy and angry emotion stimuli (sleep loss and sleepiness in the early, and insomnia, sleep loss and sleepiness in the late time-window). For sad stimuli, only maternal sleep loss predicted the neonatal ERP response in the late time-window, likely because the overall ERP was weakest in the sad condition. We conclude that maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with changes in neonatal auditory ERP responses.Peer reviewe

In vitro cytotoxicity and surface topography evaluation of additive manufacturing titanium implant materials

Custom-designed patient-specific implants and reconstruction plates are to date commonly manufactured using two different additive manufacturing (AM) technologies: direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) and electron beam melting (EBM). The purpose of this investigation was to characterize the surface structure and to assess the cytotoxicity of titanium alloys processed using DMLS and EBM technologies as the existing information on these issues is scarce. "Processed" and "polished" DMLS and EBM disks were assessed. Microscopic examination revealed titanium alloy particles and surface flaws on the processed materials. These surface flaws were subsequently removed by polishing. Surface roughness of EBM processed titanium was higher than that of DMLS processed. The cytotoxicity results of the DMLS and EBM discs were compared with a "gold standard" commercially available titanium mandible reconstruction plate. The mean cell viability for all discs was 82.6% (range, 77.4 to 89.7) and 83.3% for the control reconstruction plate. The DMLS and EBM manufactured titanium plates were non-cytotoxic both in "processed" and in "polished" forms.Peer reviewe

Atypical perceptual narrowing in prematurely born infants is associated with compromised language acquisition at 2 years of age

Background: Early auditory experiences are a prerequisite for speech and language acquisition. In healthy children, phoneme discrimination abilities improve for native and degrade for unfamiliar, socially irrelevant phoneme contrasts between 6 and 12 months of age as the brain tunes itself to, and specializes in the native spoken language. This process is known as perceptual narrowing, and has been found to predict normal native language acquisition. Prematurely born infants are known to be at an elevated risk for later language problems, but it remains unclear whether these problems relate to early perceptual narrowing. To address this question, we investigated early neurophysiological phoneme discrimination abilities and later language skills in prematurely born infants and in healthy, full-term infants. Results: Our follow-up study shows for the first time that perceptual narrowing for non-native phoneme contrasts found in the healthy controls at 12 months was not observed in very prematurely born infants. An electric mismatch response of the brain indicated that whereas full-term infants gradually lost their ability to discriminate non-native phonemes from 6 to 12 months of age, prematurely born infants kept on this ability. Language performance tested at the age of 2 years showed a significant delay in the prematurely born group. Moreover, those infants who did not become specialized in native phonemes at the age of one year, performed worse in the communicative language test (MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories) at the age of two years. Thus, decline in sensitivity to non-native phonemes served as a predictor for further language development. Conclusion: Our data suggest that detrimental effects of prematurity on language skills are based on the low degree of specialization to native language early in development. Moreover, delayed or atypical perceptual narrowing was associated with slower language acquisition. The results hence suggest that language problems related to prematurity may partially originate already from this early tuning stage of language acquisition

Maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with neonatal auditory ERPs

Poor maternal sleep quality during pregnancy may act as a prenatal stress factor for the fetus and associate with neonate neurocognition, for example via fetal programming. The impacts of worsened maternal sleep on neonatal development and, more specifically on neonatal auditory brain responses, have not been studied. A total of 155 mother-neonate dyads drawn from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study participated in our study including maternal self-report questionnaires on sleep at gestational week 24 and an event-related potential (ERP) measurement among 1-2-day-old neonates. For sleep quality assessment, the Basic Nordic Sleep Questionnaire (BNSQ) was used and calculated scores for (1) insomnia, (2) subjective sleep loss and (3) sleepiness were formed and applied in the analyses. In the auditory ERP protocol, three emotionally uttered pseudo words (in happy, angry and sad valence) were presented among neutrally uttered pseudo words. To study the relations between prenatal maternal sleep quality and auditory emotion-related ERP responses, mixed-effects regression models were computed for early (100–200 ms) and late (300–500 ms) ERP response time-windows. All of the selected BNSQ scores were associated with neonatal ERP responses for happy and angry emotion stimuli (sleep loss and sleepiness in the early, and insomnia, sleep loss and sleepiness in the late time-window). For sad stimuli, only maternal sleep loss predicted the neonatal ERP response in the late time-window, likely because the overall ERP was weakest in the sad condition. We conclude that maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with changes in neonatal auditory ERP responses.</p

Index finger movement imitation by human neonates: motivation, learning, and left-hand preference

Imitation of a fine motor movement, index finger protrusion, was examined in 39 neonates using an ethologically based objective coding system. Results confirmed that imitation of finger movements exists, and infants demonstrated "learning" as imitation developed through an incomplete imitation stage. Neonatal imitation was more frequently left-handed, an early sign of laterality in motivation to be investigated further. The existence of index finger imitation in human neonates indicates that volitional control of individuated finger movements develops much earlier than previously thought. The differential increase of index finger protrusion movements during the imitation periods suggests that this behavior is not an automatic response triggered by general arousal but instead is a true indicator of purposeful neonatal imitation

Non-linear laws of echoic memory and auditory change detection in humans

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The detection of any abrupt change in the environment is important to survival. Since memory of preceding sensory conditions is necessary for detecting changes, such a change-detection system relates closely to the memory system. Here we used an auditory change-related N1 subcomponent (change-N1) of event-related brain potentials to investigate cortical mechanisms underlying change detection and echoic memory.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Change-N1 was elicited by a simple paradigm with two tones, a standard followed by a deviant, while subjects watched a silent movie. The amplitude of change-N1 elicited by a fixed sound pressure deviance (70 dB vs. 75 dB) was negatively correlated with the logarithm of the interval between the standard sound and deviant sound (1, 10, 100, or 1000 ms), while positively correlated with the logarithm of the duration of the standard sound (25, 100, 500, or 1000 ms). The amplitude of change-N1 elicited by a deviance in sound pressure, sound frequency, and sound location was correlated with the logarithm of the magnitude of physical differences between the standard and deviant sounds.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present findings suggest that temporal representation of echoic memory is non-linear and Weber-Fechner law holds for the automatic cortical response to sound changes within a suprathreshold range. Since the present results show that the behavior of echoic memory can be understood through change-N1, change-N1 would be a useful tool to investigate memory systems.</p