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Of all our senses, hearing is the only one that has long been suspected of being "constantly" active, even in our sleep. The sounds that occur during the night have a way to register in the brain. Now, a group of scientists in Tennessee report on the results of studies on what is heard and not heard during sleep and what that might mean for a developing brain.
At the 176th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held in conjunction with Acoustics Canada's Acoustic Week in Canada, November 5-9. At the Victoria Conference Center in Victoria, the Vanderbilt University research team will present a summary of preliminary findings from an EEG study in which preschool children have shown traces of memory for the sounds heard during the nap.
The group's work is one of the first discoveries on how sleep environments affect preschool children.
"The type of environment in which children sleep has been the subject of discussion, especially in recent years," said Adrienne Roman, abstract author. "But there is a big hole in the literature and discussion about what's going on with preschool children, which was our starting point."
To study the brain waves of young children, the researchers used a portable EEG device and tested isolated children in a quiet, secluded room during a siesta of a kindergarten. Once asleep, the group played three absurd words for a short time to the child.
The children showed positive signs to recognize the test sounds in a series of other absurd words (that they had not heard before) in a follow-up EEG after nap. This indicates that during sleep, children were still processing auditory information.
One of the new features of the group study was that he was able to verify that the children were sleeping well before administering the sounds – a difficult feat for some of the youngest participants.
"Of course, they are tired and they are ready for nap, so now you are trying to connect them to this device, and a few of them did not have it.
Roman hopes this work is the first step in understanding how these processes work in children who use hearing technology because of a hearing loss, but for the sake of comfort, remove the devices to sleep. The group collected EEG data on a child who had used a cochlear implant, establishing the feasibility of sleeping with one and considering recruiting more children with implants.
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Material provided by Acoustic Society of America. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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