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Frequency shift in topography of spontaneous brain rhythms from childhood to adulthood

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Abstract

It has been described that the frequency ranges at which theta, mu and alpha rhythms oscillate is increasing with age. The present report, by analyzing the spontaneous EEG, tries to demonstrate whether there is an increase with age in the frequency at which the cortical structures oscillate. A topographical approach was followed. The spontaneous EEG of one hundredand seventy subjects was recorded. The spectral power (from 0.5 to 45.5 Hz) was obtained by means of the Fast Fourier Transform. Correlations of spatial topographies among the different age groups showed that older groups presented the same topographical maps as younger groups, but oscillating at higher frequencies. The results suggest that the same brain areas oscillate at lower frequencies in children than in older groups, for a broad frequency range. This shift to a higher frequency with age would be a trend in spontaneous brain rhythm development.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, grant number PSI2013-47506-R funded by the FEDER program of the UE, and Junta de Andalucía, grant number CTS-153.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Psychobiology Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    E. I. Rodríguez-Martínez, F. J. Ruiz-Martínez, C. I. Barriga Paulino & Carlos M. Gómez

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  1. E. I. Rodríguez-Martínez
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  2. F. J. Ruiz-Martínez
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  3. C. I. Barriga Paulino
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  4. Carlos M. Gómez
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Correspondence to E. I. Rodríguez-Martínez.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 14 kb)

11571_2016_9402_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplemental Figure 1: Mean of the Logarithm of the spectral power in different age groups (1-children, 2-preadolescents, 3-adolscents, 4-youngsters, 5-young adults) for each frequency band: low delta (0-1 Hz); high delta (2-3 Hz); theta (4-7 Hz); low alpha (8-10 Hz); high alpha (11-14 Hz); low beta (15-20 Hz); high beta (21-35 Hz) and gamma (36-46 Hz). Each single point represents the mean SP value of the electrodes represented in Figure 1. The bars represent 2* Standard Error. (TIFF 4147 kb)

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Rodríguez-Martínez, E.I., Ruiz-Martínez, F.J., Barriga Paulino, C.I. et al. Frequency shift in topography of spontaneous brain rhythms from childhood to adulthood. Cogn Neurodyn 11, 23–33 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-016-9402-4

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