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- Title
A novel sensor design for accurate measurement of facial somatosensation in pre-term infants.
- Authors
Donadio, Alessandro; Whitehead, Kimberley; Gonzalez, Franck; Wilhelm, Elisabeth; Formica, Domenico; Meek, Judith; Fabrizi, Lorenzo; Burdet, Etienne
- Abstract
Facial somatosensory feedback is critical for breastfeeding in the first days of life. However, its development has never been investigated in humans. Here we develop a new interface to measure facial somatosensation in newborn infants. The novel system allows to measure neuronal responses to touching the face of the subject by synchronously recording scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and the force applied by the experimenter. This is based on a dedicated force transducer that can be worn on the finger underneath a clinical nitrile glove and linked to a commercial EEG acquisition system. The calibrated device measures the pressure applied by the investigator when tapping the skin concurrently with the resulting brain response. With this system, we were able to demonstrate that taps of 192 mN (mean) reliably elicited facial somatosensory responses in 7 pre-term infants. These responses had a time course similar to those following limbs stimulation, but more lateral topographical distribution consistent with body representations in primary somatosensory areas. The method introduced can therefore be used to reliably measure facial somatosensory responses in vulnerable infants.
- Subjects
BIOSENSORS; FACIAL expression &; emotions (Psychology); PREMATURE infants; ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY; BRAIN physiology
- Publication
PLoS ONE, 2018, Vol 13, Issue 11, p1
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0207145