Login / Signup

Parent attention-orienting behavior is associated with neural entropy in infancy.

Cabell L WilliamsAllison R BelkowitzMadelyn G NanceEmily T MortmanSoni BaeSheher-Bano AhmedMeghan H Puglia
Published in: bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology (2024)
Parents play a significant role in directing infant's attention to environmental stimuli via joint attention. We hypothesized that infants whose parents provide more bids for joint attention will display a more complex neural response when viewing social scenes. Sixty-one 8-month-old infants underwent electroencephalography (EEG) while viewing videos of joint- and parallel-play and participated in a parent-infant free play interaction. EEG data was analyzed using multiscale entropy, which quantifies moment-to-moment neural variability. Free play interactions were coded for parent alternating gaze, a behavioral mechanism for directing attention to environmental cues. We found a significant positive association between parent alternating gaze and neural entropy in frontal and central brain regions. These results suggest a relationship between parent behavior and infant neural mechanisms that regulate social attention, underlying the importance of parent cues in the formation of neural networks in infancy.
Keyphrases
  • working memory
  • functional connectivity
  • resting state
  • healthcare
  • neural network
  • mental health
  • weight gain
  • multiple sclerosis
  • body mass index
  • white matter
  • physical activity
  • deep learning