Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AIM_COACH (Artificial Intelligence Model for Cognitive Assessment for infants and Children)
Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-07-31
Joy's premature birth resulted in a four-week stay in the NICU, and her first birthday celebration raised concerns about her social responsiveness. Subsequent medical evaluation led to a diagnosis of perceptual developmental delays, prompting her parents, to consider early automated detection methods for such deficits, as opposed to later subjective behavioral techniques.
This issue highlights the importance of identifying and addressing developmental delays and perceptual deficits in children, whether they are born prematurely or at full term. Addressing these challenges is crucial for the following reasons: Ensuring healthy child development is a core societal goal. Early detection and intervention for developmental delays improves well-being and minimizes long-term difficulties. Early intervention fosters equal opportunities for all children, irrespective of developmental challenges, enabling success in various aspects of life. Unaddressed delays lead to lasting social and economic burdens. Early detection and intervention reduces the need for costly later interventions, potentially preventing lifelong disabilities and saving resources.
AIM_COACH, a research project, seeks to understand infant brain development and assist children with challenges like Joy's. It studies brain responses in full-term and premature infants to achieve these goals: Automate Processing: Develop automated methods for analyzing infant brain signals (EEG). Early Detection: Use machine learning models to identify early signs of learning or cognitive issues in infants. Knowledge Documentation: Compile valuable research findings to support professionals in infant care and advance this field of research.
This issue highlights the importance of identifying and addressing developmental delays and perceptual deficits in children, whether they are born prematurely or at full term. Addressing these challenges is crucial for the following reasons: Ensuring healthy child development is a core societal goal. Early detection and intervention for developmental delays improves well-being and minimizes long-term difficulties. Early intervention fosters equal opportunities for all children, irrespective of developmental challenges, enabling success in various aspects of life. Unaddressed delays lead to lasting social and economic burdens. Early detection and intervention reduces the need for costly later interventions, potentially preventing lifelong disabilities and saving resources.
AIM_COACH, a research project, seeks to understand infant brain development and assist children with challenges like Joy's. It studies brain responses in full-term and premature infants to achieve these goals: Automate Processing: Develop automated methods for analyzing infant brain signals (EEG). Early Detection: Use machine learning models to identify early signs of learning or cognitive issues in infants. Knowledge Documentation: Compile valuable research findings to support professionals in infant care and advance this field of research.
AIM_COACH is a proof-of-concept study investigating Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)-based cognitive monitoring using High-Density Electroencephalography (HD EEG) in infants. Its main goal is to assess the feasibility of providing BCI-based cognitive monitoring within an infant's first year.
Infancy is a crucial time for sensory development, especially in shaping how infants perceive their environment. This study focuses on visual motion perception and analyzes EEG recordings related to looming objects. It involves 100 full-term and 26 preterm infants at two developmental stages: 3-5 months, the pre-locomotor phase and 10-12 months, the crawling phase.
During the experiments, infants were exposed to a visual stimulus simulating an object approaching rapidly, designed to study their neural responses to potential threats (refer to Figure 1). All participating infants were healthy, with no reported complications, and informed consent was obtained from their parents or guardians. Ethical approval for the study was granted by relevant committees.
Overview of results: AIM_COACH study on looming-related brain responses in infants has unveiled shared patterns and subtle age-related variations during impending collision events. These neural patterns are consistent across all infants (full-term and preterm), primarily concentrated in the parieto-occipital cortices. Both groups of infants exhibited similar responses to looming stimuli, characterized by theta and alpha frequency bands' phase-locking and theta band event-related synchronization.
To identify looming-related brain responses, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was trained using data from older full-term infants. This classifier effectively identified such responses in younger full-term infants without significant performance decline. Specifically, the classifier trained on amplitude and power features achieved above-chance accuracy, while phase features did not perform significantly better than chance.
The classification performance of these features on younger infants was evaluated, and amplitude yielded the highest accuracy, suggesting the viability of real-time detection of looming responses in infants through EEG and BCI technology. This supports the future development of BCI for monitoring infant perceptual development in real-time.
As infants grow older and more mobile, improvements in looming-related brain responses become evident. Older infants displayed responses closer to the virtual collision point and greater activity in higher alpha-band frequencies. Notably, full-term infants exhibited reduced latencies, especially in time-to-contact (ttc), as they matured, while preterm infants did not show similar improvements. The variation in ttc values suggests the potential use of latency as a developmental biomarker within the BCI paradigm. This marker could assess infants' visual maturity, offering insights into their perceptual growth.
AIM_COACH has shared its findings through journal publications, including articles submitted to IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (under review) and Brain Sciences (under preparation). The project actively participated in conferences and workshops, such as the International BCI Meeting and International Congress of Infant Studies, to present research outcomes and engage with experts in the field. AIM_COACH maintains a dedicated website featuring articles summarizing its research findings and related studies aimed at informing parents and caregivers.
Infancy is a crucial time for sensory development, especially in shaping how infants perceive their environment. This study focuses on visual motion perception and analyzes EEG recordings related to looming objects. It involves 100 full-term and 26 preterm infants at two developmental stages: 3-5 months, the pre-locomotor phase and 10-12 months, the crawling phase.
During the experiments, infants were exposed to a visual stimulus simulating an object approaching rapidly, designed to study their neural responses to potential threats (refer to Figure 1). All participating infants were healthy, with no reported complications, and informed consent was obtained from their parents or guardians. Ethical approval for the study was granted by relevant committees.
Overview of results: AIM_COACH study on looming-related brain responses in infants has unveiled shared patterns and subtle age-related variations during impending collision events. These neural patterns are consistent across all infants (full-term and preterm), primarily concentrated in the parieto-occipital cortices. Both groups of infants exhibited similar responses to looming stimuli, characterized by theta and alpha frequency bands' phase-locking and theta band event-related synchronization.
To identify looming-related brain responses, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was trained using data from older full-term infants. This classifier effectively identified such responses in younger full-term infants without significant performance decline. Specifically, the classifier trained on amplitude and power features achieved above-chance accuracy, while phase features did not perform significantly better than chance.
The classification performance of these features on younger infants was evaluated, and amplitude yielded the highest accuracy, suggesting the viability of real-time detection of looming responses in infants through EEG and BCI technology. This supports the future development of BCI for monitoring infant perceptual development in real-time.
As infants grow older and more mobile, improvements in looming-related brain responses become evident. Older infants displayed responses closer to the virtual collision point and greater activity in higher alpha-band frequencies. Notably, full-term infants exhibited reduced latencies, especially in time-to-contact (ttc), as they matured, while preterm infants did not show similar improvements. The variation in ttc values suggests the potential use of latency as a developmental biomarker within the BCI paradigm. This marker could assess infants' visual maturity, offering insights into their perceptual growth.
AIM_COACH has shared its findings through journal publications, including articles submitted to IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (under review) and Brain Sciences (under preparation). The project actively participated in conferences and workshops, such as the International BCI Meeting and International Congress of Infant Studies, to present research outcomes and engage with experts in the field. AIM_COACH maintains a dedicated website featuring articles summarizing its research findings and related studies aimed at informing parents and caregivers.
Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology has the potential to significantly enhance quality of life by enabling vital functions, communication, and independence. However, BCI research has primarily focused on adults, leaving a gap in applications for children, especially infants. AIM_COACH is a proof-of-concept project showing promise in using BCI technology to analyze brain signals related to visual stimuli in infants, paving the way for a BCI-based perceptual monitoring system. This approach opens doors for studying visual development in infants with genetic disorders using BCI technology, offering insights into their visual perception. Considering the rapid brain development during infancy, there's untapped potential in researching other perceptual abilities like auditory and tactile senses. Customized experiments involving infants with different risk factors can unlock BCI's capabilities in diagnosing impaired cognition early, advancing our understanding and support for infant brain development.
AIM_COACH's potential societal impacts include: Early BCI-based monitoring can enhance the quality of life by detecting perceptual deficits in infants and providing opportunities of timely interventions. Early diagnosis and intervention can reduce long-term healthcare costs associated with untreated developmental issues. AIM_COACH promotes equal opportunities for children with perceptual deficits, fostering inclusivity and social acceptance. AIM_COACH's research enriches scientific knowledge in BCI technology for infants. This knowledge holds the potential to extend beyond the project's scope, potentially catalyzing innovations in healthcare and early intervention strategies, as well as igniting further research and discoveries in related fields.
AIM_COACH's potential societal impacts include: Early BCI-based monitoring can enhance the quality of life by detecting perceptual deficits in infants and providing opportunities of timely interventions. Early diagnosis and intervention can reduce long-term healthcare costs associated with untreated developmental issues. AIM_COACH promotes equal opportunities for children with perceptual deficits, fostering inclusivity and social acceptance. AIM_COACH's research enriches scientific knowledge in BCI technology for infants. This knowledge holds the potential to extend beyond the project's scope, potentially catalyzing innovations in healthcare and early intervention strategies, as well as igniting further research and discoveries in related fields.