3-174 - Neurocognitive development in early childhood: Functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) studies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Functional nearinfrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a relatively new non-invasive functional neuroimaging methodology. Capitalizing on the optical properties of the cerebral blood flow when it interacts with near-infrared lights, fNIRS measures cortical oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes associated with cognitive activities. Although fNIRS has limited spatial resolutions when compared to fMRI, it has higher temporal resolution than typical fMRI. Also, unlike fMRI, fNIRS is relatively low in cost, mobile, and quiet, and has high tolerance for motion. It is thus particularly suited for pediatric functional neuroimaging studies.

In the last decade, pediatric fNIRS research has been advancing rapidly. Here, we bring together four recent fNIRS studies that investigated neural correlates of cognitive processing in infants and young children. The first study examined neural correlates of infant statistical perceptual learning, the second investigated the role of experience in young children’s neural processing of faces, the third tested whether teaching another how to follow rules will improve children’s executive functioning at both behavioral and neural levels, and the fourth explored methods to map individual child participant’s optical NIRS channels on the scalp to the cortical anatomical locations, an essential step for ascertaining cortical neural correlates of cognitive processing. We hope that these four studies together will showcase cutting-edge neurocognitive development research, illustrate how fNIRS can be used to study cognitive processes in infants and children, and demonstrate challenges of pediatric fNIRS research and potential solutions. Furthermore, we hope that these four studies will spur further pediatric fNIRS research with infants and children.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes

Chairs

• Kang Lee, University of Toronto

• Yusuke Moriguchi, Joetsu University of Education

Individual Presentations

• How does statistical information change infant perceptual systems? fNIRS studies with 6-month-olds - Presenting Author: Lauren L. Emberson, Univ of Rochester; Richard N Aslin, Univ of Rochester

• Neural correlates of own- and other-race face recognition in preschoolers: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study - Presenting Author: Kang Lee, University of Toronto; Xiao Pan Ding, Zhejiang Normal University; Guifei Zhou, Beijing Jiaotong University; Jiangang Liu, Beijing Jiaotong University; John E Richards, University of South Carolina; Wanze Xie, University of South Carolina; Genyue Fu, Zhejiang Normal University

• Teaching others rule-use improves executive function and prefrontal activations in young children: A fNIRS study - Presenting Author: Yusuke Moriguchi, Joetsu University of Education

• Scalp locations projected to cortical anatomy for infant NIRS - Presenting Author: John E Richards, University of South Carolina