The development of sustained attention in infants

University Of South Carolina At Columbia, Columbia SC

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Abstract

The objectives are to study the development of sustained attention in young infants and to relate development in sustained attention to concurrent heart rate (HR) changes and brain activity (EEG, ERP). The specific aims are: 1) To study sustained, subject-controlled attention in infants from 14 to 26 weeks of age, and to study the effect of attention on eye movements to complex / dynamic peripheral stimuli, and continue the study of attention to video programs in infants and young children from 6 months through 2 years of age; 2) To study the cortical basis of planned eye movements and recognition memory in young infants with high-density EEG and ERP, and to study the effect of attention on infant saccade planning and infant recognition memory; 3) To develop realistic models of cortical source analysis using infant anatomical MRI, to accurately identify brain areas that control the effect of sustained attention on eye movements, attention, and recognition memory. This research examines the patterns of attention found in normal children, relates those attention patterns to physiological processes (HR, EEG, ERP), examines potential brain areas that may be involved in those attention patterns, and may provide a model preparation for the study of children with irregular patterns of attention. Some research will examine how infant attention to complex audiovisual stimuli such as children's video programs affects basic attention processes. Other research will use high-density EEG recording to Infer cortical sources of infant attention and recognition memory. A novel advance of the grant is the use of individual infant participant's structural MRIs to develop cortical models for source analysis and measure brain structural development. Models of cortical source analysis using realistic models of Infants brain and head will be developed to examine the cortical sources of ERP. Tools for the cortical source analysis of infant EEG and ERP will be developed and put on a online database for use by other researchers interested in infant and child neuroscience.