Chunk #19 — Changes in Frontal EEG Coherence across Infancy Predict Cognitive Abilities at Age 3: The Mediating Role of Attentional Control — EEG Coherence and the Estimation of Neural Networks
Thatcher (1994) has proposed that the coherence value between two EEG recording sites at rest reflects the number and/or strength of synaptic connections between their underlying neuronal populations. For these reasons, analyzing changes in resting EEG coherence over time is a method for tracing the maturation of neural networks in the brain. Two papers have reported associations between measures of baseline EEG coherence and infant locomotion status (Bell & Fox, 1996; Fox, Calkins, & Bell, 1994); and two have reported associations with working memory (Bell, 2012; Bell & Fox, 1992). However, none have examined longitudinal changes in baseline EEG coherence in relation to developing attention or higher cognitive skills. Increases in resting EEG coherence between frontal regions of the cortex should be associated with emerging attentional control skills (Posner & Rothbart, 2007); such increases may be particularly likely during the second half of the first year when there is widespread myelination of axons and synaptogenesis (Huttenlocher, 1990) and when attention networks are supposedly developing.
