TY  - JOUR
AB  - The concept of fetal consciousness is a widely discussed topic. In this study, we applied a hierarchical rule learning paradigm to investigate the possibility of fetal conscious processing during the last trimester of pregnancy. We used fetal magnetoencephalography, to assess fetal brain activity in 56 healthy fetuses between gestational week 25 and 40, during an auditory oddball paradigm containing first- and second-order regularities. The comparison of fetal brain responses towards standard and deviant tones revealed that the investigated fetuses show signs of hierarchical rule learning, and thus the formation of a memory trace for the second-order regularity. This ability develops over the course of the last trimester of gestation, in accordance with processes in physiological brain development and was only reliably present in fetuses older than week 35 of gestation. Analysis of fetal autonomic nervous system activity replicates findings in newborns, showing importance of activity state for cognitive processes. On the whole, our results support the assumption that fetuses in the last weeks of gestation are capable of consciously processing stimuli that reach them from outside the womb.
AU  - Moser, J.
AU  - Schleger, F.
AU  - Weiss, M.
AU  - Sippel, K.
AU  - Semeia, L.
AU  - Preissl, H.
C1  - 62081
C2  - 50636
CY  - The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford Ox5 1gb, Oxon, England
TI  - Magnetoencephalographic signatures of conscious processing before birth.
JO  - Dev. Cogn. Neurosci  .
VL  - 49
PB  - Elsevier Sci Ltd
PY  - 2021
SN  - 1878-9293
ER  - 

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Estimating the extent to which newborn humans process input from their environment, especially regarding the depth of processing, is a challenging question. To approach this problem, we measured brain responses in 20 newborns with magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a “local-global” auditory oddball paradigm in which two-levels of hierarchical regularities are presented. Results suggest that infants in the first weeks of life are able to learn hierarchical rules, yet a certain level of vigilance seems to be necessary. Newborns detected violations of the first-order regularity and displayed a mismatch response between 200−400 ms. Violations of the second-order regularity only evoked a late response in newborns in an active state, which was expressed by a high heart rate variability. These findings are in line with those obtained in human adults and older infants suggesting a continuity in the functional architecture from term-birth on, despite the immaturity of the human brain at this age.
AU  - Moser, J.
AU  - Schleger, F.
AU  - Weiss, M.
AU  - Sippel, K.
AU  - Dehaene-Lambertz, G.*
AU  - Preissl, H.
C1  - 60408
C2  - 49394
CY  - The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford Ox5 1gb, Oxon, England
TI  - Magnetoencephalographic signatures of hierarchical rule learning in newborns.
JO  - Dev. Cogn. Neurosci  .
VL  - 46
PB  - Elsevier Sci Ltd
PY  - 2020
SN  - 1878-9293
ER  -