Body Maps in Early Infancy: A Foundation for Social Engagement

从出生的那一刻起，人类就开始与他人形成社会关系。当然，这些关系在婴儿期、儿童期和以后变得越来越复杂，但支持这种发展的能力很可能在早期婴儿期就有了基础。这一研究项目的重点是这样一种能力，即婴儿认识到自己的身体与他人的身体之间存在对应关系(例如，将自己的手识别为与父母的手功能相同的身体部位)。这种对身体对应关系的认识要求婴儿对自己身体的结构有一个基本的感觉，尽管他们不能从外部看到他们。这项研究调查了婴儿的大脑是如何组织起来的，以识别和组织关于自己身体的信息，这种情况在发育过程中是如何变化的，以及它可能如何影响他们识别与他人身体对应的能力。该奖项支持将使用脑电(EEG)方法来研究生命最初几周和几个月内体位体位图的特性的研究。具体地说，将测量一个月大婴儿对手、脚和嘴唇的触觉刺激的Mu节律去同步化和事件相关电位(ERP)反应，这些反应的空间模式被用来绘制发育中的人脑的身体地图。研究人员预计，当婴儿在触觉刺激期间注意他人的动作时，这些大脑反应的大小和模式可能会发生改变。这将告诉我们，婴儿大脑中的身体地图可能是在身体层面上将自我和他人联系起来的早期过程的一部分。

From the moment of birth, humans begin to form social relationships with others. These relationships, of course, become increasingly more complex across infancy, childhood, and beyond, but the abilities that support this development likely have their foundations in early infancy. The focus of this research project is on one such ability, infants' recognition that there is a correspondence between their own bodies and those of others (such as recognizing one's own hand as the same body part with the same function as one's parents' hands). This recognition of bodily correspondences requires that infants have a basic sense of the structure of their own bodies despite not being able to see them from the outside. This research investigates how infants' brains are organized to recognize and organize information about their own bodies, how this changes over development, and how it might influence their ability to recognize bodily correspondences with others. This award supports studies in which electroencephalographic (EEG) methods will be used to study the properties of somatotopic body maps in the first weeks and months of life. Specifically, mu rhythm desynchronization and event-related-potential (ERP) responses in one-month-old infants will be measured in response to tactile stimulation of the hands, feet, and lips, with the spatial pattern of these responses being used to chart body maps in the developing human brain. The investigators anticipate that the magnitude and patterning of these brain responses may be modified when the infant is attending to the movements of other people during the periods of tactile stimulation. This will inform how body maps in the infant brain may be part of an early process relating self and other at a bodily level.