Cortical signatures of visual body representation develop in human infancy

Jiale Yang*, So Kanazawa, Masami K Yamaguchi, Joydeep Bhattacharya, Andrew Bremner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Human infants cannot report their experiences, limiting what we can learn about their bodily awareness. However, visual cortical responses to the body, linked to visual awareness and selective attention in adults, can be easily measured in infants and provide a promising marker of bodily awareness in early life. We presented 4- and 8-month-old infants with a flickering (7.5 Hz) video of a hand being stroked and recorded steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs). In half of the trials, the infants also received tactile stroking synchronously with visual stroking. The 8-month-old, but not the 4-month-old infants, showed a significant enhancement of SSVEP responses when they received tactile stimulation concurrent with the visually observed stroking. Follow-up experiments showed that this enhancement did not occur when the visual hand was presented in an incompatible posture with the infant's own body or when the visual stimulus was a body-irrelevant video. Our findings provide a novel insight into the development of bodily self-awareness in the first year of life.

Original languageEnglish
Article number14696
Number of pages11
JournalScientific Reports
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Cortical signatures of visual body representation develop in human infancy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this