Supporting Infant Emotion Regulation Through Attachment-Based Intervention: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Infant emotion regulation has long-term implications for human development, highlighting the need for preventive interventions that support emotion regulation early in life. Such interventions may be especially important for infants higher in emotional reactivity who need to regulate their emotions more frequently and intensely than infants lower in emotional reactivity. The current randomized trial examined main and moderated effects of an attachment-based intervention on (a) infants' use of mother-oriented and self-soothing emotion regulation strategies and (b) infant emotion dysregulation in 186 low-income, predominantly Latino infants.

Action mechanisms for social cognition: behavioral and neural correlates of developing Theory of Mind.

Many psychological theories posit foundational links between two fundamental constructs: (1) our ability to produce, perceive, and represent action; and (2) our ability to understand the meaning and motivation behind the action (i.e. Theory of Mind; ToM).

Motor System Activation Predicts Goal Imitation in 7-Month-Old Infants.

The current study harnessed the variability in infants' neural and behavioral responses as a novel method for evaluating the potential relations between motor system activation and social behavior. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to record neural activity as 7-month-old infants observed and responded to the actions of an experimenter. To determine whether motor system activation predicted subsequent imitation behavior, we assessed event-related desynchronization (ERD) at central sites during action observation as a function of subsequent behavior.

Assessing human mirror activity with EEG mu rhythm: A meta-analysis.

A fundamental issue in cognitive neuroscience is how the brain encodes others' actions and intentions. In recent years, a potential advance in our knowledge on this issue is the discovery of mirror neurons in the motor cortex of the nonhuman primate. These neurons fire to both execution and observation of specific types of actions.

Desynchronization in EEG during perception of means-end actions and relations with infants' grasping skill.

The current study examined age-related differences in electroencephalogram (EEG) activity during perception of means-end actions and production of grasps, and how EEG activity may relate to infants' motor competence. We collected data from 9- and 12-month-old infants during perception of means-end actions made with a tool and during execution of their own grasps. We computed event-related desynchronization (ERD) during perception and production events and assessed infants' reach-grasp competence by looking at their latency to complete grasps.

Hypervigilance to Rejecting Stimuli in Rejection Sensitive Individuals: Behavioral and Neurocognitive Evidence.

Individuals who are high in rejection sensitivity are vigilant toward social cues that signal rejection, and they exhibit attention biases towards information that confirms expectations of rejection. Little is known, however, about the neural correlates of rejection sensitivity. The present study examined whether rejection sensitivity is associated with individuals' neural responses to rejection-relevant information.

Spectral and source structural development of mu and alpha rhythms from infancy through adulthood.

Objective: To assess the developmental trajectory of spectral, topographic, and source structural properties of functional mu desynchronization (characterized during voluntary reaching/grasping movement), and investigate its spectral/topographic relation to spontaneous EEG in the developing alpha band.

Methods: Event related desynchronization (ERD) and power spectral density spectra/topography are analyzed in 12 month-old infants, 4 year-old children, and adults. Age-matched head models derived from structural MRI are used to obtain current density reconstructions of mu desynchronization across the cortical surface.

Relations between infants' emerging reach-grasp competence and event-related desynchronization in EEG.

Recent reports of similar patterns of brain electrical activity (electroencephalogram: EEG) during action execution and observation, recorded from scalp locations over motor-related regions in infants and adults, have raised the possibility that two foundational abilities--controlling one's own intentional actions and perceiving others' actions--may be integrally related during ontogeny. However, to our knowledge, there are no published reports of the relations between developments in motor skill (i.e.

The Infant EEG Mu Rhythm: Methodological Considerations and Best Practices.

The EEG mu rhythm, recorded from scalp regions overlying the sensorimotor cortex, appears to exhibit mirroring properties: It is reactive when performing an action and when observing another perform the same action. Recently, there has been an exponential increase in developmental mu rhythm research, partially due to the mu rhythm's potential role in our understanding of others' actions as well as a variety of other social and cognitive processes (e.g.

Infants generate goal-based action predictions.

Predicting the actions of others is critical to smooth social interactions. Prior work suggests that both understanding and anticipation of goal-directed actions appears early in development. In this study, on-line goal prediction was tested explicitly using an adaptation of Woodward's (1998) paradigm for an eye-tracking task.

Action production influences 12-month-old infants' attention to others' actions.

Recent work implicates a link between action control systems and action understanding. In this study, we investigated the role of the motor system in the development of visual anticipation of others' actions. Twelve-month-olds engaged in behavioral and observation tasks.

Action Anticipation and Interference: A Test of Prospective Gaze.

In the current study we investigate the proposal that one aspect of social perception, , involves the recruitment of representations for self-produced action. An eye tracking paradigm was implemented to measure prospective gaze to a goal while performing either a motor or working memory task. Results indicate an effect of the motor task, suggesting the interference of a shared motor and action perception representation.