Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain
Bendetta Mariani, Giorgio Nicoletti, Giacomo Barzon, Maía Clemencia Ortíz Barajas, Mohinish Shukla, Ramon Guevara, Samir Suweis, Judit Gervain
Published in Science Advances 9 (47), eadj3524 (2023), 2023
Recommended citation: Bendetta Mariani, Giorgio Nicoletti, Giacomo Barzon, Maía Clemencia Ortíz Barajas, Mohinish Shukla, Ramon Guevara, Samir Suweis, Judit Gervain. Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain. Science Advances 9 (47), eadj3524 (2023).
Read the paper
Abstract
Human infants acquire language with striking ease compared to adults, but the neural basis of their remarkable brain plasticity for language remains little understood. Applying a scaling analysis of neural oscillations for the first time to address this question, we show that newborns’ electrophysiological activity exhibits increased long-range temporal correlations after stimulation with speech, particularly in the prenatally heard language, indicating the early emergence of brain specialization for the native language.