Abstract
Following birth, infants must immediately process and rapidly adapt to the array of unknown sensory experiences associated with their new ex-utero environment. However, whilst it is known that unimodal stimuli induce activity in the corresponding primary sensory cortices of the newborn brain, it is unclear how multimodal stimuli are processed and integrated across modalities. The latter is essential for learning and understanding environmental contingencies through encoding relationships between sensory experiences; and ultimately likely subserves development of life-long skills such as speech and language. Here, for the first time, we map the intra-cerebral processing which underlies auditory-sensorimotor classical conditioning in a group of 13 neonates (median gestational age at birth: 38w+4d, range: 32w+2d – 41w+6d; median postmenstrual age at scan: 40w+5d, range: 38w+3d – 42w+1d) with BOLD fMRI and MR compatible robotics. We demonstrate that classical conditioning can induce crossmodal changes within putative unimodal sensory cortex even in the absence of its archetypal substrate. Our results also suggest that multimodal learning is associated with network wide activity within the conditioned neural system. These findings suggest that in early life, external multimodal sensory stimulation and integration shapes activity in the developing cortex and may influence its associated functional network architecture.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Cerebral Cortex |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 15 Oct 2020 |