Cortical specialization associated with native speech category acquisition in early infancy.

This study investigates neural processes in infant speech processing, with a focus on left frontal brain regions and hemispheric lateralization in Mandarin-speaking infants' acquisition of native tonal categories. We tested 2- to 6-month-old Mandarin learners to explore age-related improvements in tone discrimination, the role of inferior frontal regions in abstract speech category representation, and left hemisphere lateralization during tone processing. Using a block design, we presented four Mandarin tones via [ta] and measured oxygenated hemoglobin concentration with functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Intrinsic brain activity is increasingly complex and develops asymmetrically during childhood and early adolescence.

A large body of evidence suggests that brain signal complexity (BSC) may be an important indicator of healthy brain functioning or alternately, a harbinger of disease and dysfunction. However, despite recent progress our current understanding of how BSC emerges and evolves in large-scale networks, and the factors that shape these dynamics, remains limited. Here, we utilized resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy (rs-fNIRS) to capture and characterize the nature and time course of BSC dynamics within large-scale functional networks in 107 healthy participants ranging from 6-13 years of age.

Different executive function impairments in medication-naïve children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder comorbid with oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.

The impairment of executive functions (EFs) in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might vary from one individual to another, indicating high heterogeneity. Comorbidity may contribute to this heterogeneity. Disruptive behavior disorders (DBD), including oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD), is the most common comorbidity in ADHD.

Development and emergence of functional network asymmetry in 3- to 9-month-old infants.

Cerebral asymmetry is a cardinal feature of functional organization in the human brain and an important biomarker of successful brain development. Studies have demonstrated that functional network asymmetries across hemispheres undergo significant development through childhood and adulthood. However, it remains unknown when such asymmetries of functional networks emerge and how they develop across the early months of infancy.

The potential shared brain functional alterations between adults with ADHD and children with ADHD co-occurred with disruptive behaviors.

Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder. Many previous studies have shown that the comorbid status of disruptive behaviour disorders (DBD) was a predictor for ADHD persistence into adulthood. However, the brain mechanisms underlying such a relationship remain unclear.

Hemispheric Lateralization of Visuospatial Attention Is Independent of Language Production on Right-Handers: Evidence From Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

It is well-established that visuospatial attention is mainly lateralized to the right hemisphere, whereas language production is mainly left-lateralized. However, there is a significant controversy regarding how these two kinds of lateralization interact with each other. The present research used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine whether visuospatial attention is indeed right-lateralized, whereas language production is left-lateralized, and more importantly, whether the extent of lateralization in the visuospatial task is correlated with that in the task involving language.

Disrupted signal variability of spontaneous neural activity in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Brain signal variability (BSV) has shown to be powerful in characterizing human brain development and neuropsychiatric disorders. Multiscale entropy (MSE) is a novel method for quantifying the variability of brain signal, and helps elucidate complex dynamic pathological mechanisms in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, multiple-channel resting-state functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging data were acquired from 42 children with ADHD and 41 healthy controls (HCs) and then BSV was calculated for each participant based on the MSE analysis.

The perceptual span in Tibetan reading.

Tibetan script differs from other alphabetic writing systems in that word forms can be composed of horizontally and vertically arrayed characters. To examine information extraction during the reading of this script, eye movements of native readers were recorded and used to control the size of a window of legible text that moved in synchrony with the eyes. Letters outside the window were masked, and no viewing constraints were imposed in a control condition.