Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Little Rock, Arkansas » Microbiome and Metabolism Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #183340
Title: POWER SPECTRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RESTING EEG IN BREAST-FED, MILK-FED, AND SOY-FED INFANTS AT 3 MONTHS OF AGE

Author
item JING, HONGKUI - UAMS/ACNC
item DYKMAN, ROSCOE - ACNC
item Gilchrist, Janet
item PIVIK, R - ACNC

Submitted to: Society for Neuroscience Abstracts and Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/25/2005
Publication Date: 3/30/2005
Citation: Jing, H., Dykman, R.A., Gilchrist, J.M., Pivik, R.T. 2005. Power spectral characteristics of resting eeg in breast-fed, milk-fed, and soy-fed infants at 3 months of age. Society for Neuroscience - Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting, April 10-12, 2005. Supplement 1, p. 56.

Interpretive Summary: Variations in resting brain waves have been used as a measure of brain maturation in infants. This study investigated whether brain maturation is affected by different diets by comparing frequency characteristics of brain waves recorded during quiet wakefulness in healthy breast-fed and formula-fed (milk-based or soy-based) full-term infants at 3 months of age. No significant group differences were found for either frequency measures or the distribution of EEG patterns across recording sites.

Technical Abstract: This study evaluated diet effects on EEG power spectral characteristics in healthy full-term 3-month old infants. Resting EEGs (5 minutes, 124 electrodes, 250 Hz sampling rate, 0.1-100 Hz bandpass filter) were recorded from 123 awake infants fed different diets: breast milk (23 males/21 females), milk-based formula (25/17), and soy-based formula (23/14). Artifact-free 4-sec EEG segments (n=4-30/infant) were analyzed. Spectral edge frequencies (SEFs) below which 90% of spectral powers resided were computed. Spectral powers were computed for each of 5 frequency bands (0.5-4, 4-7, 8-13, 13-30, and 30-39.5 Hz). Within brain areas, neither SEFs nor spectral powers differed as a function of diet (p > 0.05). Also, there were no significant differences within groups based on gender (Kruskal-Willis test, all p > 0.05). However, the SEFs from the central, parietal and occipital areas were lower than those from the frontal and temporal areas (p < 0.05), and the SEFs for the right centroparietal areas were lower than the homologous left brain areas (p < 0.05). Frontocentral areas exhibited higher spectral powers than parietooccipital areas for all frequency bands (p < 0.05). In the range of 0.5-13 Hz, the powers in right central, parietal, and occipital areas were higher than those in left brain areas (p < 0.05). These results indicate that at this age, infants fed the indicated diets show similar frequency and topographic EEG power spectral characteristics, including evidence of differential hemispheric maturation.