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Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth
The concept of fetal consciousness is a widely discussed topic. In this study, we applied a hierarchical rule learning paradigm to investigate the possibility of fetal conscious processing during the last trimester of pregnancy. We used fetal magnetoencephalography, to assess fetal brain activity in...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8163957/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34023644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100964 |
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author | Moser, Julia Schleger, Franziska Weiss, Magdalene Sippel, Katrin Semeia, Lorenzo Preissl, Hubert |
author_facet | Moser, Julia Schleger, Franziska Weiss, Magdalene Sippel, Katrin Semeia, Lorenzo Preissl, Hubert |
author_sort | Moser, Julia |
collection | PubMed |
description | The concept of fetal consciousness is a widely discussed topic. In this study, we applied a hierarchical rule learning paradigm to investigate the possibility of fetal conscious processing during the last trimester of pregnancy. We used fetal magnetoencephalography, to assess fetal brain activity in 56 healthy fetuses between gestational week 25 and 40, during an auditory oddball paradigm containing first- and second-order regularities. The comparison of fetal brain responses towards standard and deviant tones revealed that the investigated fetuses show signs of hierarchical rule learning, and thus the formation of a memory trace for the second-order regularity. This ability develops over the course of the last trimester of gestation, in accordance with processes in physiological brain development and was only reliably present in fetuses older than week 35 of gestation. Analysis of fetal autonomic nervous system activity replicates findings in newborns, showing importance of activity state for cognitive processes. On the whole, our results support the assumption that fetuses in the last weeks of gestation are capable of consciously processing stimuli that reach them from outside the womb. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8163957 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81639572021-06-04 Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth Moser, Julia Schleger, Franziska Weiss, Magdalene Sippel, Katrin Semeia, Lorenzo Preissl, Hubert Dev Cogn Neurosci Original Research The concept of fetal consciousness is a widely discussed topic. In this study, we applied a hierarchical rule learning paradigm to investigate the possibility of fetal conscious processing during the last trimester of pregnancy. We used fetal magnetoencephalography, to assess fetal brain activity in 56 healthy fetuses between gestational week 25 and 40, during an auditory oddball paradigm containing first- and second-order regularities. The comparison of fetal brain responses towards standard and deviant tones revealed that the investigated fetuses show signs of hierarchical rule learning, and thus the formation of a memory trace for the second-order regularity. This ability develops over the course of the last trimester of gestation, in accordance with processes in physiological brain development and was only reliably present in fetuses older than week 35 of gestation. Analysis of fetal autonomic nervous system activity replicates findings in newborns, showing importance of activity state for cognitive processes. On the whole, our results support the assumption that fetuses in the last weeks of gestation are capable of consciously processing stimuli that reach them from outside the womb. Elsevier 2021-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8163957/ /pubmed/34023644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100964 Text en © 2021 The Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Original Research Moser, Julia Schleger, Franziska Weiss, Magdalene Sippel, Katrin Semeia, Lorenzo Preissl, Hubert Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title | Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title_full | Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title_fullStr | Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title_full_unstemmed | Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title_short | Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
title_sort | magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8163957/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34023644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100964 |
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