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Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants

This study examined the brain bases of early human social cognitive abilities. Specifically, we investigated whether cortical regions implicated in adults' perception of facial communication signals are functionally active in early human development. Four-month-old infants watched two kinds of...

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Autores principales: Grossmann, Tobias, Johnson, Mark H, Lloyd-Fox, Sarah, Blasi, Anna, Deligianni, Fani, Elwell, Clare, Csibra, Gergely
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18755668
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0986
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author Grossmann, Tobias
Johnson, Mark H
Lloyd-Fox, Sarah
Blasi, Anna
Deligianni, Fani
Elwell, Clare
Csibra, Gergely
author_facet Grossmann, Tobias
Johnson, Mark H
Lloyd-Fox, Sarah
Blasi, Anna
Deligianni, Fani
Elwell, Clare
Csibra, Gergely
author_sort Grossmann, Tobias
collection PubMed
description This study examined the brain bases of early human social cognitive abilities. Specifically, we investigated whether cortical regions implicated in adults' perception of facial communication signals are functionally active in early human development. Four-month-old infants watched two kinds of dynamic scenarios in which a face either established mutual gaze or averted its gaze, both of which were followed by an eyebrow raise with accompanying smile. Haemodynamic responses were measured by near-infrared spectroscopy, permitting spatial localization of brain activation (experiment 1), and gamma-band oscillatory brain activity was analysed from electroencephalography to provide temporal information about the underlying cortical processes (experiment 2). The results revealed that perceiving facial communication signals activates areas in the infant temporal and prefrontal cortex that correspond to the brain regions implicated in these processes in adults. In addition, mutual gaze itself, and the eyebrow raise with accompanying smile in the context of mutual gaze, produce similar cortical activations. This pattern of results suggests an early specialization of the cortical network involved in the perception of facial communication cues, which is essential for infants' interactions with, and learning from, others.
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spelling pubmed-25726802008-12-29 Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants Grossmann, Tobias Johnson, Mark H Lloyd-Fox, Sarah Blasi, Anna Deligianni, Fani Elwell, Clare Csibra, Gergely Proc Biol Sci Research Article This study examined the brain bases of early human social cognitive abilities. Specifically, we investigated whether cortical regions implicated in adults' perception of facial communication signals are functionally active in early human development. Four-month-old infants watched two kinds of dynamic scenarios in which a face either established mutual gaze or averted its gaze, both of which were followed by an eyebrow raise with accompanying smile. Haemodynamic responses were measured by near-infrared spectroscopy, permitting spatial localization of brain activation (experiment 1), and gamma-band oscillatory brain activity was analysed from electroencephalography to provide temporal information about the underlying cortical processes (experiment 2). The results revealed that perceiving facial communication signals activates areas in the infant temporal and prefrontal cortex that correspond to the brain regions implicated in these processes in adults. In addition, mutual gaze itself, and the eyebrow raise with accompanying smile in the context of mutual gaze, produce similar cortical activations. This pattern of results suggests an early specialization of the cortical network involved in the perception of facial communication cues, which is essential for infants' interactions with, and learning from, others. The Royal Society 2008-08-28 2008-12-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2572680/ /pubmed/18755668 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0986 Text en Copyright © 2008 The Royal Society http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Grossmann, Tobias
Johnson, Mark H
Lloyd-Fox, Sarah
Blasi, Anna
Deligianni, Fani
Elwell, Clare
Csibra, Gergely
Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title_full Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title_fullStr Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title_full_unstemmed Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title_short Early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
title_sort early cortical specialization for face-to-face communication in human infants
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572680/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18755668
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0986
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