Maturation of the auditory-visual interaction networks throughout childhood
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1
INSERM U930, France
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2
INSERM U821, France
Despite the importance of interactions between audition and vision for communication and language development, little is known about the mechanisms of multisensory integration throughout childhood. The aim of this study was thus to investigate the maturation of the neurophysiological processes underlying auditory-visual interactions in children, using event-related potentials (ERPs). Thirty-five healthy children aged 5 to 10 years participated in the experiment. Thirty of them were included in the analyses and separated in three groups of age: 56 years, 78 years and 910 years (n=10 for each group). ERPs were recorded from 31 scalp electrodes in response to unimodal auditory (A), visual (V), and bimodal (AV) stimuli in a no-task paradigm. Auditory-visual interactions were assessed by comparing the ERPs in response to bimodal stimuli with the sum of the ERPs in response to the unimodal stimuli [AV (A+V)]. Significant interaction effects were compared among the three age-groups and with the results obtained in a previous study in adults (Vidal et al., 2008, Clinical Neurophysiology 119, pp. 763-771). Age-related modifications occurred not only in the characteristics of the unisensory responses, but also in the auditory-visual interactions. In agreement with the findings in adults, two types of interaction effects were found in children: i) modulation of the unimodal responses within the first 100 ms post-stimulus, and ii) new activity in non-sensory-specific areas around 200 ms. These two types of significant [AV (A+V)] patterns effects displayed spatio-temporal distributions evolving with age. The first pattern showed latencies and topographies that depended, at least in part, on the maturation of the unimodal responses in the same latency-range. On the other hand, the non-sensory-specific activity occurred over the fronto-temporal region in all groups of children, with a topography predominant on the right hemiscalp as in adults. These findings thus reveal some of the maturation processes of the cross-modal interaction networks in children, and throw light on the processes of multisensory integration that could be impaired in developmental disorders, especially those involving communication and language deficits.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Abstracts
Citation:
Vidal
J,
Giard
M,
Roux
S,
Barthélémy
C and
Bruneau
N
(2008). Maturation of the auditory-visual interaction networks throughout childhood.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.284
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Received:
09 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
09 Dec 2008.
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Correspondence:
Nicole Bruneau, INSERM U930, Tours, France, n.bruneau@chu-tours.fr