Proposal for developmental researchers

[MakotoMiyakoshi]

I predict that children show generally steeper slopes in EEG 1/f-ness than adults because unmyelinated axons are analogous to dendrites to which cable theory applies (other thing being equal, of course).

Do any of you have resting-state EEG data recorded from children? Actually I do--I am working at children's hospital.
Do any of you want to test this hypothesis?

[KrisBaetens]

Hi Makoto

Have you seen the detailed investigation here: Wilkinson, C. L., Yankowitz, L. D., Chao, J. Y., Gutiérrez, R., Rhoades, J. L., Shinnar, S., ... & Nelson, C. A. (2024). Developmental trajectories of EEG aperiodic and periodic components in children 2–44 months of age. Nature communications, 15(1), 5788.? They report a significant increase in aperiodic slope in the first year of life, in contrast with the often reported age related flattening following that. In our own samples of 3K adolescents/adult RS EEGs, we also reproduce age-related decreases in slope, as well as the interaction with sex reported here (which may be relevant due to its relation to overall brain size?)

[dieloz]

There's this one too! Schaworonkow, N., & Voytek, B. (2021). Longitudinal changes in aperiodic and periodic activity in electrophysiological recordings in the first seven months of life. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 47, 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100895

[KrisBaetens]

Yes, and interestingly, they disagree: Aperiodic offset and slope significantly increased with age (FDR-adjusted q values < 0.001), and age-by-sex interactions were present for both aperiodic offset (F = 5.28, q = 0.002) and slope (F = 3.04, q = 0.03). Modeled developmental trajectories of the aperiodic offset showed a qualitatively sharp linear increase over the first year after birth for both males and females (Fig. 1h) <-> The aperiodic exponent shows a strong decrease in the first half year of life.

[dieloz]

Thank you for pointing this out, @KrisBaetens! I didn't know about Wilkinson et al., and you’ve just provided a good reason to dive into it. Thank you!

[Contrerana]

My preliminary results on babies from ~200 to ~800 days. Just basic correlations. If that helps to the discussion. Slope changes drastically with age, the offset not at all.

Some development literature:

https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14360
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100969
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101073