Project Content:
When do fundamental cognitive faculties like attention and perception first develop? To address this question, we will investigate the prenatal origins of a cognitive process that is highly conserved both across species and postnatal human development [1]: attention toward, and perception of, faces. We will assess the feasibility of using face-like stimuli to look for evidence that cortically-dependent attention and perception begin prior to birth. We will investigate fetal perception of face-like stimuli using red light emitting diodes (LEDs) and fiber optic cables. Visual patterns will be used to examine attention and face perception prenatally while recording fetal magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetocardiography (MCG) to measure neural and cardiac responses, respectively, evoked by face-like stimuli. Given prior work, early perception of face-like stimuli may rely on overall „top-heaviness“ of the stimulus rather than distinct facial features. Bottom-heavy and random visual stimuli will be used in control conditions. We will perform 2D ultrasound to determine fetal position and head circumference before the MEG experiment. Ultrasound will be repeated after the experiment to detect fetuses with large positional shifts. Whereas prior studies have investigated fetal behavioral responses to face-like stimuli, our pilot study would be the first to investigate neural responses to such stimuli. These neural findings will make a pioneering contribution in the frontier area of prenatal cognition. Our pilot study will assess the feasibility of each of the following aims by recruiting 40 pregnant women as participants. We expect that roughly half of the fetuses will face toward the anterior uterine wall, i.e., toward the visual stimulus. The other half will be used as control participants, because these fetuses are effectively positioned to view only diffuse light from the same stimulus under otherwise identical conditions.
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See grant listing here at the Bial Foundation