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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Little Rock, Arkansas » Microbiome and Metabolism Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #185276
Title: EFFECTS OF BREAST MILK, MILK FORMULA AND SOY FORMULA ON GLOBAL FIELD POWER OF EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS TO SPEECH SOUNDS AT 6, 9, AND 12 MONTHS OF AGE

Author
item JING, HONGKUI - UAMS/ACNC
item PIVIK, R - ACNC
item Gilchrist, Janet
item Badger, Thomas

Submitted to: Society for Neuroscience Abstracts and Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/7/2005
Publication Date: 11/12/2005
Citation: Jing, H., Pivik, R.T., Gilchrist, J.M., Badger, T.M. 2005. Effects of breast milk, milk formula and soy formula on global field power of event-related potentials to speech sounds at 6, 9, and 12 months of age [abstract]. Annual Meeting of Society for Neuroscience, Washington, D.C., November 12-16, 2005. Program No. 643.7.

Interpretive Summary: We looked at the effects of early diet [breast milk or formula (milk, soy)] on brain responses to speech sounds in babies 6 to 12 months old. Group responses were similar for most measures, but babies fed soy formula reacted faster than others to one type of speech sound at 9 and 12 months. These are early results, and more data are needed to confirm and interpret these findings.

Technical Abstract: Previous studies have indicated that milk formula fed (MF) infants have different brain reactions to auditory stimuli than breast fed (BF) infants, e.g., auditory evoked responses with prolonged latency are elicited from infants fed regular milk formula. Whether a similar effect is present in infants fed soy-based formula (SF) has not been investigated. Multiple channel event-related potentials (ERPs) to synthesized sounds /pa/ and /ba/ (80%:20%) were compared in BF (n=33), MF (n=30), and SF (n=31) infants. ERPs were recorded at 6-, 9-, and 12-months (n = 65, 55, and 34, respectively). ERPs were averaged according to sound type, and maximal activity was identified based on global field power. A prominent component peaking at 200 ms was found in grand averaged waveforms at all ages. The latency to /ba/ stimuli was longer than that to /pa/ stimuli in all groups at 6 months, particularly in the BF and SF infants (p<0.05). Between-group difference was not significant at this age. At 9 months, the SF infants showed shorter latencies to /pa/ stimuli than other infants (p<0.05). Similar trend was also found at 12 months (p=0.054). A decrease in latency was observed across age in all infants. Amplitude did not differ among the groups at each age. Generally higher amplitude was induced by the /ba/ stimuli relative to the /pa/ stimuli at each age. The amplitude was decreased across age in all groups. Taken together, our data suggest that no deficiency in development of the auditory central nervous system is found in SF infants. The relatively faster brain responses observed in the SF infants at 9 and 12 months suggest somewhat more efficient perception processing in these infants than that of other two groups at these age stages.