Behavioral correlates of direct current-coupled electrographic activity in premature infants

The co-expression of behavioral and neural events represents a situation conducive to Hebbian-type neuroplasticity and may provide a reasonable explanation for how the amount of movement during the perinatal period contributes to neuromotor development. Direct current-coupled electrographic recordings in premature infants indicate that the majority of the electrographic activity is exhibited in a slow frequency range that is either distorted or not visible using traditional recording methods. Therefore, we provide a description of the behavioral correlates of direct current-coupled electrographic recordings in six premature human infants (3 males and 3 females; 30–34 weeks). We report, in concert with prior data, that electrographic activity and movements occur in tightly coupled discrete bouts. Surprisingly, spontaneous activity transients, which are slow, high amplitude, multiband electrographic events, typically precede startles; thereby revealing a previously unknown coupling of early neural and behavioral events in humans. Taken together, the present findings open novel venues for studying and dissecting mammalian neuromotor development.