Attentive processes in newborns

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During my postdoc in Helsinki in 2004-2005 at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit, I examined the auditory system and attentive processes of healthy newborns using EEG and MEG. Ever since, I have been returning frequently to Finland to do more research on this topic. In 2008, we recorded new MEG data in a study assessing whether neonates can differentiate consonant from dissonant sounds. The manuscript is currently in preparation.

My collaborators in Helsinki are Minna Huotilainen and Eino Partanen and previously I also worked with Elina Pihko. All recordings were done at the BioMag Laboratory, headed by Jyrki Makela.



In a typical measurement, we place the newborns on a bed next to the MEG helmet in a magnetically shielded room. The MEG system is placed in supine position and the newborn is lying with the right hemisphere over the occipital part of the helmet, see picture above. We, thus, only record brain activity from one hemisphere. The reason for this is that the head is too small for the adult shaped helmet, see picture below. Additionally, we place a couple of EEG electrodes on the right side of the baby's head to determine the sleep stage. We record activity during both quiet (very similar to the slow-wave sleep) and active (similar to the REM-sleep) sleep. Next, we mainly analyse the responses during the quiet sleep, because in this stage the auditory responses are larger.