John E. Richards - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objectives are to study the development of sustained attention in young infants and to relate development in sustained attention to concurrent heart rate (HR) changes. The specific aims are: 1) To study sustained, subject-controlled attention in infants from 8 to 26 weeks of age, and to study the control of saccadic eye movements during heart-rate-defined attention phases, in order to infer the neurodevelopmental systems controlling attention-directed eye movements; 2) To study the cortical basis of planned eye movements in young infants with high-density EEG and ERP, and to study the effect of attention on infant saccade planning; 3) To study the development of attention in infants and young preschool children during extended television viewing and to further extend the study of sustained attention. This research examines the patterns of attention found in normal children, relating those attention patterns to physiological processes (HR. EEG), and may provide a "model preparation" for the study of children with irregular patterns of attention. Experiment 1 will examine the characteristics of the "main sequence" in eye movements in the early parts of this age range (8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26 weeks) and will examine the effect of attention on the main sequence. Experiments 2 and 3 will examine infant planned eye movements under the influence of HR-defined attention phases. Experiment 2 will examine covert shifts of attention to peripheral stimuli in infants at 8, 14, and 20 weeks of age. This study will use "high-density" EEG recording to infer cortical sources of attention-directed eye movement control. Experiment 3 will use the "visual expectation procedure" to induce anticipatory eye movements in young infants (8, 14, 20 weeks) while recording high-density EEG to examine the role of the cortex in infant planned saccades. Experiment 4 will extend the study of HR-defined attention phases to extended television viewing in older infants and the early preschool years (6 months to 2 years). It is predicted that 1) age changes in sustained attention will interact with development changes in eye movements to affect attention-directed eye movements; 2) emerging technologies for inferring cortical activity using high-density EEG recording should reveal the cortical sources involved in the control of infant planned saccades; 3) sustained attention will be closely related to patterns of extended television viewing in the early preschool years (up to age 2 years).

This is a request for an ADAMHA, Research Scientist Development Award, Level II. The purpose of this proposal is to allow the Principal Investigator to develop his career in mental health research. This will be done by extending the current research areas of the PI to new ones furthering collaboration of the PI with several researchers in the mental health and alcoholism field, and providing for continuing professional development of the research. The objectives of the research goals are to study the development of sustained, endogenous attention in young infants, and to relate developmental trends in sustained attention to concurrent heart rate (HR) changes. The specific aims are: 1) To study the selectivity of sustained attention in relation to other visual systems;. 2) To study information processing occurring during sustained attention; 3) To extend the study of heart-rate-defined visual attention phases to new stimuli and naturalistic stimulus conditions. These aims form the major goals of the proposed RSDA support. Two secondary aims of the Research Scientist Development award are to establish collaborative relationships. These aims are: 4) To study attentional dysfunctions in Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome infants, and to develop an animal model of attentional dysfunctions; 5) To improve methodological and measurement characteristics involved in the measurement of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; variability in heart rate occurring at the respiration frequency). The research covers basic research in the development of sustained attention in infants The research on sustained attention may provide a "model preparation" for the development of attentional disabilities found in hyperactive, autistic, and retarded children. The new collaborative projects of the PI will begin to explore the application of the sustained attention research to infants with attention pathologies. Professional development and the acquisition of new knowledge by the PI will be furthered by direct participation in this research. This RSDA application is particularly relevant to the goals and programs in the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch, of the Division of Basic Sciences, at the National Institute of Mental Health.

With National Science Foundation support Dr. John Richards and his collaborators at the University of South Carolina will purchase instrumentation necessary to establish a high-density EEG/ERP recording laboratory in the Department of Psychology. High-density EEG/ERP recording is a recently developed technique in which 128 electrodes are used to record scalp electrical potentials. These changes are hypothesized to be related to specific events in the cortex that in turn are closely related to psychological processes. The instrumentation allows the testing of cortical source generators and will be used for research and research training in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The System has three components: 1. A NetAmps recording system and ancillary equipment made by Electrical Geodesics Inc. for high-density acquisition of EEG and ERP; 2. Software for source modeling of the cortical potentials; 3 related equipment including a computer for experimental testing, network switches to provide a virtual laboratory to allow access to the EEG/ERP equipment. Support is also provided to personnel to aid in the installation and maintenance of the equipment and laboratory.

The scientists with primary access to the instrumentation are involved in research and research training in the study of the neural basis of behavior and cognition and engage in hypothesis driven basic scientific research. Topics include reading, attention and perception, the development of the brain and brain control of attention and object cognition. It will be possible for example to study the psychophysiology of attention in infants aged 2 to 6 months and gain insight into the cortical processing involved in reading. The University of South Carolina Department of Psychology currently runs an NSF Summer Research Institute for Undergraduates and students will be permitted to participate in experiments which utilize this instrumentation. It will also be available for teaching and research purposes to both graduates and undergraduates.

Project Summary / Abstract Infant attention consists of multiple phases, including stimulus orienting, sustained attention and attention termination. These phases index overall arousal/alertness functions of the brain, and modulate specific attention systems in the cortex. The PI has used heart rate as an index of the alertness/arousal system and shown the effects of attention on a wide variety of infant information processing systems. This has been done with behavioral methods to measure attention and with psychophysiological and neuroimaging methods to examine the effect of sustained attention on specific brain processes. A significant advance in the prior grant period was the development of tools to use infant structural MRIs for realistic models of the infant head and brain for cortical source analysis of ERP. The current project will use these tools to study the relation between sustained attention and brain areas involved in endogenously-cued spatial attention by identifying the generators of ERP components with cortical source analysis. The project also will examine the effects of attention on the cortical response to face stimuli. The tools developed in the prior grant period will be refined to improve the cortical source analysis, generalize the procedures to doing cortical source analysis in infants without structural MRIs, and generalized to other infant neuroimaging methods.

Project Summary / Abstract Scientists using neuroimaging tools, such as MRI, NIRS, EEG, and MEG, use average MRI templates for locating brain structures (stereotaxic atlases), combining brains across different participants, segmenting priors for identification of cortical tissues (gray matter, white matter, CSF), and determining the relation between scalp locations and the brain (e.g., EEG, NIRS, MEG). Average MRI templates that are usually used have been based on single adult MRIs or average templates from young adults. Use of these templates with pediatric (newborns, infants, children), adolescent, and elderly populations results in irregular registrations, misspecification of segmented data, and poor fits for stereotaxic atlases. The ?Neurodevelopmental MRI Database? was created to address this issue. It provides MRI templates form 2 weeks through 89 years of age, as well as supporting materials (segmenting priors, atlases, EEG and NIRS placements). The data are presented in fine-grained ages (e.g., 1.5 month intervals through 1 year; 6 month intervals through 19.5 years; 5 year intervals from 20 through 89 years). The current project will add new participants to the average MRI templates, refine the MRIs for wider use with MRI processing programs, and plan a transition from distribution through the PI's online storage site to an open-access distribution site. This project will enhance the current data and facilitate the sharing of this important resource.