Integrated information in the EEG of preterm infants increases with family nurture intervention, age, and conscious state.
Joseph R Isler, Raymond I Stark, Philip G Grieve, Martha G Welch, Michael M Myers
PLoS One 2018 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206237 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Preterm infants |
| Intervention | Family Nurture Intervention |
| Key findings | Integrated information increased with age in preterm infants, more so in those exposed to Family Nurture Intervention, and it discriminated between conscious states. |
Abstract
A putative quantifier of consciousness, integrated information, was applied to preterm infant EEG data after novel pre-processing. Integrated information had a non-random structure as a function of the time lag over which it was computed. For most lags, it increased with age in early life, but even more so in infants exposed to Family Nurture Intervention (FNI), providing further evidence that FNI advances brain maturation in preterm infants. Also, it discriminated between conscious states (awake, REM sleep, NREM sleep), providing empirical support for the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness in human infants.