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PubMed · 1446545

The relations between frontal brain electrical activity and cognitive development during infancy.

M A Bell·N A Fox
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Abstract

The relations between changes in the scalp-recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) and the development of the ability to perform successfully 2 cognitive tasks attributed to frontal lobe functioning were examined in 13 infants from 7 to 12 months of age. Infants successful in performing the A-not-B task with increasingly longer delays across the second half of the first year of life showed changes in power in scalp-recorded brain electrical activity in the frontal region and an increase in anterior/posterior EEG coherence. Infants with rapid mastery of object retrieval did not differ in frontal EEG development from infants who exhibited the normal developmental progression in object retrieval performance. In a task examining inhibition of reaching to a novel toy, there were no differences in frontal EEG as a function of performance. Results from a cross-sectional sample revealed similar findings. These data confirm work with nonhuman primates on the importance of maturation of frontal cortex in the successful performance on certain tasks (A-not-B), but do not confirm nonhuman primate data on the importance of frontal cortex for other tasks (object retrieval). The data also suggest that the electroencephalogram may be useful as a noninvasive measure of central nervous system development during the first year of life.

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BrainChild BehaviorChild DevelopmentChild, PreschoolCognitionCross-Sectional StudiesElectroencephalographyFemaleFollow-Up StudiesFrontal LobeHumansInfantInfant, NewbornLongitudinal StudiesMalePlay and PlaythingsProblem SolvingTask Performance and AnalysisJournal ArticleResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

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M A Bell, N A Fox. 1992. The relations between frontal brain electrical activity and cognitive development during infancy.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1446545/

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