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Fetal discrimination of low-pitched musical notes
Abstract
Cardiac responses of 36- to 39-week-old (GA) fetuses were tested with a no-delay pulsed stimulation paradigm while exhibiting a low heart rate (HR) variability (the HR pattern recorded when fetuses are in the 1f behavioral state). We examined whether fetuses could discriminate between two low-pitched piano notes, D4 (F(0) = 292 Hz/292-1800 Hz) and C5 (F(0) = 518 Hz/518-300 Hz). Seventy percent of all fetuses reacted to the onset of the first note (D4 or C5) with the expected cardiac deceleration. After heart rate returned to baseline, the note was changed (to C5 or D4, respectively). Ninety percent of the fetuses who reacted to the note switch did it with another cardiac deceleration. Control fetuses, for whom the first note did not change, displayed few cardiac decelerations. Thus, fetuses detected and responded to the pulsed presentation of a note and its subsequent change regardless of which note was presented first. Because perceived loudness (for adults) of the notes was controlled, it seems that the note's differences in F(0) and frequency band were relevant for detecting the change. Fetuses' ability to discriminate between spectra that lay within the narrow range of voice F(0) and F(1) formants may play an important role in the earliest developmental stages of speech perception.
... By 35 weeks of gestation, cochlear biomechanics and frequency selectivity are already mature. Near-term fetuses can discriminate between two pure tones, and even two low-pitched piano notes [34]. Concerning the perception of complex sounds like speech and music, fetuses can distinguish differences in Sound Pressure Level (SPL), frequencies, and spectra, which are necessary for perceiving melodic contours and prosodic features of speech. ...
Background:
Despite evidence on the prenatal pathogenesis of Cerebral Palsy (CP), there are many instances where obstetricians face litigation for malpractice.
Objective:
A scoping review of research on the association of CP with "difficult" delivery in term neonates.
Design:
For the purposes of this review an internet search was performed using credible electronic databases.
Results:
There are more than 32,500 citations under the keyword cerebral palsy, the majority of which, focus on diagnosis and treatment. Only 451 citations were included in the final review, associated with perinatal asphyxia, birth trauma, difficult delivery and obstetric litigations. Additionally, 139 medical books from various specialties were included in the research.
Discussion:
The sequence of events is hereby presented, through which the original connection between CP and delivery, has gradually been cut off. Meanwhile, all contributing factors of difficult delivery are evaluated. Persistent abnormal fetal attitude seems to be strongly connected to the difficult birth in affected term neonates. Vaginal delivery is accomplished only after sufficient passive flexion of the fetal head, achieved by additional expulsive efforts by both the mother and the assisting personnel. This additional force is perceived by the parents to be as the principal etiology of CP in their infant. In the past decades, there has been increasing evidence pertaining fetal perceptual abilities and cognitive functions.
Conclusions:
Difficult birth may be the first, amongst the early manifestations of neonatal encephalopathy.
... The wide effects of music on brain function, including auditory perception, language processing, attention and memory, emotion, and motor skills have proposed the use of music as a noninvasive intervention for patients [4]. Since the 1980s, several experimental studies have been performed on fetal sensory competencies in relation to different forms of sound stimuli [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The first empirical studies were designed to explore the fetus' hearing ability [12]. ...
Background
The developing nervous system in utero is exposed to various stimuli with effects that may be carried forward to the neonatal period. This study aims to investigate the effects of sound stimulation (music and speech) on fetal memory and learning, which was assessed later in neonatal period.
Methods
The MEDLINE (pubmed), Scopus, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library were searched. Two reviewers selected the studies and extracted the data independently. The quality of eligible studies was assessed using The Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist for Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs).
Results
Overall 3930 articles were retrieved and eight studies met the inclusion criteria. All of the included studies had good general quality; however, high risk of selection and detection bias was detected in most of them. Fetal learning was examined through neonatal electrocardiography (ECG), electroencephalography (EEG), habituation tests, and behavioral responses. Seven studies showed that the infants had learned the fetal sound stimulus and one study indicated that the prenatally stimulated infants performed significantly better on a neonatal behavior test. There was considerable diversity among studies in terms of sound stimulation type, characteristics (intensity and frequency), and duration, as well as outcome assessment methods.
Conclusions
Prenatal sound stimulation including music and speech can form stimulus-specific memory traces during fetal period and effect neonatal neural system. Further studies with precisely designed methodologies that follow safety recommendations, are needed.
Graphical Abstract
... formant (Lecanuet et al., 2000). The newborns were found to distinguish between two synthesized timbres 2980 ...
This book draws a new perspective on music as a special form of cognition that provides growing children with the means to mediate their emotional state and attitude to suit their physical and social environment. My conclusions are based on new evidence coming from: 1) musicological analysis of the original and spontaneous vocalizations by children, selected to represent the milestones in the development of music cognition; 2) comprehensive research on "ear development" throughout early childhood, systematically conducted in the USSR/Russia on a large pool of subjects during the 1920-1980s; 3) data on music perception by people habituated to non-Western forms of music, including timbre-oriented music traditions of northeast Eurasia; and 4) research coming from Vygotskian school on sociogenesis and objectivization of musical sound in early childhood (published in Russian only). The principal objective of this book is to arm researchers and students with tools to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the patterns of tonal organization in children musicking - and to inter-relate these patterns to cross-cultural patterns of early verbal, social, and emotional development. Children’s musical cognition needs a thorough revision because of the old erroneous belief, still widespread amongst developmental psychologists, that the principles of Western tonality constitute a universal modus operandi, intuitively sought by children from birth. According to this view, early children’s musicking constitutes a “defective” implementation of adult’s music due to children’s deficiencies in vocal control and its coordination with hearing. In reality, early childhood musicking constitutes a peculiar type of music, different from adult’s music – very much like children’s early speech that follows its own principles, different from adult’s speech. The principles of children’s musicking ought to be inferred from the structural organization of their non-imitative attempts to make music - bottom-to-top (as opposed to the current "a priori" top-to-bottom method of describing children's music in terms of Western tonality). Some other important issues covered in this book are the goals of musical development in childhood, the issues of musical attrition, bimusicality, and normalcy of musical abilities, the modularity of musical hearing, and the relation between musical and real-life emotions.
... Отново и при тези проучвания има нееднозначни данни (Garcia Gonzales, 2018;Chuang, 2019;Smith, 2018;Hepp, 2018). Няколко изследователи проучват феталния отговор към музикални стимули и според някои от тях фетусът е способен да запомня звуци и да отговоря на тях след раждането (Chelli, 2008;Hepper, 1996;Lecanuet, 2000;James, 2002). Вътреутробно фетусите променят изражението си и движат езика си докато слушат музика още от 16 2015). ...
Congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism is characterized by delayed or absent puberty
and infertility due to abnormally low levels of gonadotropic hormones and sex steroids. The
most common reason for its development is Kallmann syndrome - a rare congenital disorder
resulting from impaired migration of GnRH-secreting neurons from the olfactory epithelium
to the hypothalamus. It is associated with hyposmia and anosmia. In 1942 Klinefelter
described 9 men with gynecomastia, sparse facial and body hair, small testes and inability to
produce sperm. In 1959 the additional X chromosome was discovered - genotype 47, XXY,
characteristic of the complete and most common form of Klinefelter syndrome. The classic
phenotype includes low serum testosterone, high LH and FSH levels. We present a rare
clinical case of an 18-year-old boy with disomy X- 47, XXY, hormonal constellation for
hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, atypical for Klinefelter syndrome, and olfactory defect -
Kallmann syndrome.
Key words: Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, Kallmann syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome
... Visual items were presented simultaneously to facilitate the perception of a pattern (see Ferguson et al., 2018 for a demonstration that simultaneous presentation facilitates pattern perception in infants; and Conway & Christiansen, 2009 for a similar result in adults). The auditory stimuli were constructed with two different sounds differing markedly in timber and pitch (bass drum vs. triangle; for evidence that newborns and fetuses are sensitive to pitch see Lecanuet, Graniere-Deferre, Jacquet, & DeCasper, 2000;Walker et al., 2018), and cycled to form a rhythmic pattern (for evidence that newborns are sensitive to periodicity in musical rhythm, see Stefanics et al., 2007;Winkler, Haden, Ladinig, Sziller, & Honing, 2009). ...
From the very first days of life, newborns are not tied to represent narrow, modality- and object-specific aspects of their environment. Rather, they sometimes react to abstract properties shared by stimuli of very different nature, such as approximate numerosity or magnitude. As of now, however, there is no evidence that newborns possess abstract representations that apply to small sets: in particular, while newborns can match large approximate numerosities across senses, this ability does not extend to small numerosities. In two experiments, we presented newborn infants (N = 64, age 17 to 98 h) with patterned sets AB or ABB simultaneously in the auditory and visual modalities. Auditory patterns were presented as periodic sequences of sounds (AB: triangle-drum-triangle-drum-triangle-drum …; ABB: triangle-drum-drum-triangle-drum-drum-triangle-drum-drum …), and visual patterns as arrays of 2 or 3 shapes (AB: circle-diamond; ABB: circle-diamond-diamond). In both experiments, we found that participants reacted and looked longer when the patterns matched across the auditory and visual modalities – provided that the first stimulus they received was congruent. These findings uncover the existence of yet another type of abstract representations at birth, applying to small sets. As such, they bolster the hypothesis that newborns are endowed with the capacity to represent their environment in broad strokes, in terms of its most abstract properties. This capacity for abstraction could later serve as a scaffold for infants to learn about the particular entities surrounding them.
... Previous studies on anencephalic fetuses suggested that HR response to vibratory and acoustic stimulation is related to ANS activity (36,37). Animal studies had revealed that a developed auditory apparatus is a necessary condition to obtain a fetal response (38)(39)(40)(41). The human fetal auditory response begins about 26 weeks of gestation (30,31,34). ...
Context
Fetal Autonomic Nervous sysTem Evaluation (FANTE) is a non-invasive tool that evaluates the autonomic nervous system activity in a fetus. Autonomic nervous system maturation and development during prenatal life are pivotal for the survival and neuropsychiatric development of the baby.
Objective
Aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of music stimulation on fetal heart rate and specific parameters linked to ANS activity, in particular fetal heart rate variability.
Methods
Thirty-two women between the 32nd and 38th week with a singleton uncomplicated pregnancy were recruited. All FANTE data collections were acquired using a 10-derivation electrocardiograph placed on the maternal abdomen. In each session (5 min basal, 10 min with music stimulus, and 5 min post-stimulus), FANTE was registered. The music stimulus was “Clair de lune” Debussy, played through headphones on the mother’s abdomen (CTR: 31927).
Results
Music does not change the mean value of fetal heart rate. However, indices of total fetal heart rate variability statistically increase (RRsd p = 0.037, ANNsd p = 0.039, SD2 p = 0.019) during music stimulation in comparison to the basal phase. Heart rate variability increase depends mainly on the activation of parasympathetic branches (CVI p = 0.013), meanwhile, no significant changes from basal to stimulation phase were observed for indices of sympathetic activity. All the parameters of heart rate variability and parasympathetic activity remained activated in the post-stimulus phase compared to the stimulus phase. In the post-stimulus phase, sympathetic activity resulted in a significant reduction (LFn p = 0.037).
Conclusion
Music can influence the basal activity of the fetal autonomic nervous system, enhancing heart rate variability, without changing fetal heart rate mean value. Music is enabled to induce a relaxation state in a near-to-term fetus, mediated by parasympathetic activation and by a parallel sympathetic inhibition.
... For example, measuring the maturity of the response to music (e.g., Brahms' Lullaby)-by assessing heart rate and motor responses-has shown that a significant change in auditory processing occurs around week 33 [16]. Around the time of birth, infants not yet born present very precise changes in their physiological responses, such as changes in heart rate or motility, depending on specific aspects of musical stimulation (e.g., intensity, frequency, timbre) [17][18][19][20] and changes in tempo [21]. Further, studies using magnetoencephalography (MEG) have also provided evidence for a developing ability to discriminate changes in intensity and pitch during the third trimester. ...
An infant's early contact with music affects its future development in a broad sense, including the development of musical aptitude. Contact with the mother's voice, both prenatally and after birth, is also extremely important for creating an emotional bond between the infant and the mother. This article discusses the role that auditory experience-both typically musical and that associated with the mother's voice-plays in fetal, neonatal, and infant development, particularly in terms of musical aptitude. Attempts have also been made to elucidate the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the positive effects that appropriate musical stimulation can have on a child's development.
Speakers of the most varied languages created knowledge about their language activity. The awareness of language activity in Brazil has also become strong with the effervescence of social movements, which look at language as part of their identity and as an object of struggle. This search is intensified thanks to the internet and social media, which work as ways of organizing and meeting this linguistic dissidence. As part of this struggle, the LGBTQIAP+ community has been taking a stand concerning the grammatical gender marking in the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil and is looking for ways to make this marking more comprehensive because of the plurality of gender identity. As a result, several linguists and non-linguists have also taken a stand on this issue – in a plural and diverse way. Thus, through different texts that circulate in different discursive spaces, we will seek to understand and characterize how it happens, how they are constructed and which discursive procedures act on the relationship or non-relationship of the grammatical category of gender and gender identities. The texts for analysis were written by professional linguists, who contain scientific knowledge, and by non-linguists, texts that contain popular knowledge. One of our hypotheses is that within this continuum there are both disagreements and agreements, both about the validation of the knowledge of non-linguists and to the proposals raised for the (re)formulation of the linguistic aspect that marks gender in the Portuguese language of Brazil. Therefore, we are guided by studies developed by Folk Linguistics, which proposes that the knowledge of non-linguists is important and must be observed, as well as the knowledge built by linguists by the science of language, and we are guided by Michel Foucault, a from his work Orders of Discourse.
Despite consolidated evidence for the prenatal ability to elaborate and respond to sounds and speech stimuli, the ontogenetic functional brain maturation of language responsiveness in the foetus is still poorly understood. Recent advances in in-vivo foetal neuroimaging have contributed to a finely detailed picture of the anatomo-functional hallmarks that define the prenatal neurodevelopment of auditory and language-related networks. Here, we first outline available evidence for the prenatal development of auditory and language-related brain structures and of their anatomical connections. Second, we focus on functional connectivity data showing the emergence of auditory and primordial language networks in the foetal brain. Third, we recapitulate functional neuroimaging studies assessing the prenatal readiness for sound processing, as a crucial prerequisite for the foetus to experientially respond to spoken language. In conclusion, we suggest that the state of the art has reached sufficient maturity to directly assess the neural mechanisms underlying the prenatal readiness for speech processing and to evaluate whether foetal neuromarkers can predict the postnatal development of language acquisition abilities and disabilities.
In early infancy, melody provides the most salient prosodic element for language acquisition and there is huge evidence for infants’ precocious aptitudes for musical and speech melody perception. Yet, a lack of knowledge remains with respect to melody patterns of infants’ vocalisations. In a search for developmental regularities of cry and non-cry vocalisations and for building blocks of prosody (intonation) over the first 6 months of life, more than 67,500 melodies (fundamental frequency contours) of 277 healthy infants from monolingual German families were quantitatively analysed. Based on objective criteria, vocalisations with well-identifiable melodies were grouped into those exhibiting a simple (single-arc) or complex (multiple-arc) melody pattern. Longitudinal analysis using fractional polynomial multi-level mixed effects logistic regression models were applied to these patterns. A significant age (but not sex) dependent developmental pattern towards more complexity was demonstrated in both vocalisation types over the observation period. The theoretical concept of melody development (MD-Model) contends that melody complexification is an important building block on the path towards language. Recognition of this developmental process will considerably improve not only our understanding of early preparatory processes for language acquisition, but most importantly also allow for the creation of clinically robust risk markers for developmental language disorders.
Low frequency mechanical vibrations introduced on the skin are known to pass through tissues with relative ease. How these vibrations affect the foetus in utero is a question of current concern since more and more women of reproductive age are in the workplace. In the present study we mechanically vibrated the abdomen of four term pregnant sheep, antepartum and immediately postpartum, at frequencies between 2–1000 Hz and at a constant dynamic force of 0.5 newtons. Sound pressure levels (SPL) were measured intraabdominally with a miniature hydrophone fixed loosely to one side of the foetal head. Thereafter, ewes and foetuses were sacrificed, foetuses were delivered and the hydrophone replaced in the abdominal cavity in its former position. SPL showed a peak amplitude between 6 and 18 Hz in both the antepartum and postpartum conditions (p <0.01) suggesting a resonance phenomenon of the abdomen in this frequency range.
Pregnant women recited a short child's rhyme, “the target”, aloud each day between the thirty third and thirty seventh weeks of their fetuses' gestation. Then their fetuses were stimulated with tape recordings of the target and a control rhyme. The target elicited a decrease in fetal heartrate whereas the control did not. Thus, fetuses' exposure to specific speech sounds can affect their subsequent reactions to those sounds. More generally, the result suggests that third trimester fetuses become familiar with recurrent, maternal speech sounds.
The literature on spontaneous and stimulus induced human, fetal behaviour is reviewed. Spontaneous fetal behaviours, including body movements, fetal heart rate, coupling of body movements and fetal heart rate, breathing, and the association among behaviours have been characterized. In addition, maturation of behaviours have been described from conception to term. Stimulus induced behaviour, in particular fetal heart rate changes and body movements, have been used to examine sensory and cognitive development. Both spontaneous and stimulus induced behaviour are being employed to assess fetal well-being. Given a rich database, the focus of research is shifting from the characterization of behaviour to the identification and understanding of processes, mechanisms, and experiential factors underlying development.
24 male undergraduates listened to 60-sec strings of synthetic speech syllables containing a syllable change in the middle of the string. No response was required, but half of the Ss were instructed to "listen for a change." Instructions did not affect cardiac orienting to onsets or offsets of the strings but did determine whether or not orienting occurred to a change that all Ss reported hearing. Findings imply that a failure of nonverbal Ss to orient to stimulus change cannot be accepted as evidence that the change is discriminated. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Auditory Competence in Early Life is a well-written account of the development of the human auditory system and early auditory behavior. It is a practical guide for assessing auditory behavior in infants and young children that should be of particular use to students of human communicative behavior. The book begins by outlining the development of the human auditory system and the roots of communicative behavior. The author gives a well-referenced and readable summary of auditory pathways and neural mechanisms of audition. In the following chapters, the author discusses methods of studying auditory behavior in infants and relates her personal experience in a bio-acoustic laboratory. She details the responses of newborns to sound and the methods for measuring these responses during early life. There is an excellent reference and glossary section at the end of the text that should be of use to any students of audition. The book does not
The sound environment of the foetal lamb was recorded using a hydrophone implanted a few weeks before term in a small number of pregnant ewes. It was implanted inside the amniotic sac and sutured loosely to the foetal neck, to move with the foetus. Results differ from those reported earlier for the human foetus: sounds from the maternal cardiovascular system were picked up only rarely, at very low frequencies and at sound pressures around, or below, the human auditory threshold. Other sounds from within the mother occurred intermittently and rose to a high sound pressure only at frequencies above about 300 Hz. Sounds from outside the mother were picked up by the implanted hydrophone when the external sound level rose above 65-70 dB SPL, and the attenuation in sound pressure was rarely more than 30 dB and, especially at low frequencies, usually much less. However, attenuation due to the transmission of sound through the body wall and other tissues tended to change from time to time. It is concluded that the foetal lamb's sound environment consists of (1) intermittent low frequency sounds associated largely with the ewe's feeding and digestive processes and (2) sounds such as vocalisations from the flock, human voices and other sounds from outside the mother.
three central topics: sleeping and waking states, the startle reflex and its modulation by nonstartle stimuli, and the development of attentional processes such as orienting and habituation
state, sleep, and biological rhythms / startle reflex excitation and modulation / orienting and attention (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)