Neural measures of anticipatory bodily attention in children: Relations with executive function

The ability to selectively direct attention to a certain location or modality is a key neurocognitive skill. One important facet of selective attention is anticipation, a foundational biological construct that bridges basic perceptual processes and higher-order cognition. The current study focuses on the neural correlates of bodily anticipation in 6- to 8-year-old children using a task involving tactile stimulation. Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity over sensorimotor cortex was measured after a visual cue directed children to monitor their right or left hand in anticipation of tactile stimulation. Prior to delivery of the tactile stimulus, a regionally-specific desynchronization of the alpha-range mu rhythm occurred over central electrode sites (C3/C4) contralateral to the cue direction. The magnitude of anticipatory mu rhythm desynchronization was associated with children’s performance on two executive function tasks (Flanker and Card Sort). We suggest that anticipatory mu desynchronization has utility as a specific neural marker of attention focusing in young children, which in turn may be implicated in the development of executive function.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2018-09-29

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.08.002PMID 30448644PMCID 6969295
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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