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Writer's pictureHatsuo Yamada

Infants, like adults, have signs of consciousness but are slow.

Updated: May 29, 2022

Studying the "Study of Consciousness" (Stanislas Duanne) can further deepen your understanding of coaching theory.

I am studying to add a unique flavour to "unconscious rewriting".


This series of blog posts are my study notes. This time, the theme that follows the unconscious and conscious

I will write a "sign of consciousness".


 

As a result of MRI measurements, Duanne's research team confirmed that "the language network of infants is functioning, but especially in the prefrontal cortex, the processing speed is much slower than in adults."


However, the observation that a two-month-old baby with verbal attention activates the same cortical network as an adult during language processing is not conclusive.


Most of these networks are unknowingly activated, such as under anaesthesia.


Experiments by the Duanne research team show that infants have a rudimentary form of language working memory.

Fourteen seconds later, when they repeated the same sentence, the baby showed signs of memory.


Infant Broca's area showed more vigorous activity when heard a second time than when he heard it first.


At the age of two months, the baby's brain has one of the hallmarks of consciousness, the ability to maintain information in working memory for a few seconds.


We also found that the baby's reaction to words was different when he was awake and asleep.


The auditory cortex is always active, but activity transmission to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex occurs only when awake.


This area has flat curves in sleeping babies, so the prefrontal cortex, an important node in the adult workspace, contributes primarily to conscious processing, even in awakened babies. So you can see that it seems to be.


IT's a topical/global test to investigate the residual consciousness of an adult patient in a vegetative state was covered in this article. This test repeats a series of sounds, such as "Bee B B Boo," to the patient, during which EEG is used to record the patient's brain waves.


You will hear a series of sounds like "Bee-Bee-Bee-Bee" that sometimes breaks regularity. When this novelty evoked a widespread P3 wave that spread to the prefrontal cortex and the associated workspace area, it was very likely that the patient was conscious.


Performing this test requires no education, language, or explanation. Therefore, it can easily apply to babies (almost any animal).


However, this test has the only problem. If the test is repeated, the baby will soon be in a bad mood.


So, to prevent the baby from being in a bad mood, I remodelled it into a multimedia show that recorded a series of vowels such as "Ahhhhhhh" with a charming face.



This constantly changing face that moves the mouth attracts babies. When it drew the baby's attention in this way, they found that the brain of a two-month-old baby also showed a widespread reaction to novelty, that is, a sign of consciousness.

However, researchers analyze that the brain's reaction time in infants is significantly slower than in adults.


Every processing step takes a disproportionately long time. For example, it takes one-third of a second for the baby's brain to unknowingly generate a mismatched response by capturing vowel changes.


In addition, it takes a second for the prefrontal cortex to respond to global novelty. The speed is 3 to 4 times slower than adults.


Adults report that they did not see anything when masked unless they displayed the target image for approximately one-twentieth of a second or longer.


The baby can't answer in words, but if the facial image flashes below the threshold, it indicates that the baby wasn't visible without staring at it.

However, when they extended the display period to the extent that they exceeded the threshold, the baby's gaze was directed to the face.


In other words, infants, like adults, were affected by masking and recognized faces only when they were displayed above the perceptual threshold.



They found the threshold 2 to 3 higher in infants than in adults.

From 10 to 12 months after birth, the behaviour of the prefrontal cortex begins to appear. The infant's threshold will be the same as that of an adult by that time.


The baby's brain is collecting the evidence available for the flushed face.

In the next phase, slow negative EEG was triggered in the prefrontal cortex only when they displayed the facial image for a period above the threshold.


Functionally and morphologically, this late activity is similar to adult P3 waves in many ways. With sufficient sensory input evidence, even the baby's brain can convey it to the prefrontal cortex, albeit significantly slower.


This two-step processing structure is essentially the same as in conscious adults who can report what they see, so even if they cannot report in words, the baby is already conscious. Therefore, it is safe to assume that you are experiencing a typical visual sense.


Because the baby's brain is immature, conscious access is as present as in adults, but it is prolonged, perhaps up to four times slower.


The fatty myelin sheath that surrounds the axons continues to mature into childhood and even puberty.

The baby's brain web is wired but not insulated.


Information integration is much slower. Infant slowness is similar to a patient recovering from a coma.



It is still unknown exactly when the baby will become conscious.

However, the newborn's brain already has long-distance neural connections anatomically stretched, and its processing capacity is slow but sufficient.


Swedish paediatrician Hugo Lagercrantz and French neurobiologist Jean-Pierre Changenjou have raised an interesting hypothesis that "birth coincides with the first access to consciousness."


The fetus in utero is sedated by a stream of drugs containing the Neurosteroid anaesthetic pregnenolone. And the hypnotic prostaglandin D2 is supplied by the placenta.


Birth coincides with a massive increase in the secretion of stress hormones and stimulant neurotransmitters such as catecholamines.


Usually, within the next few hours, the newborn will wake up with wide-open eyes and begin to work well.


If the baby is already conscious, we may say that childbirth means the birth of consciousness.

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