Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency

Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses
Publication date
2022-12-22
Document type
Research article
Author
Ribas-Prats, Teresa
Puertollano, Marta
Mondéjar-Segovia, Alejandro
Gómez-Roig, María Dolores
Costa-Faidella, Jordi
Escera, Carles
Organisational unit
Brainlab – Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Spain
Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Spain
Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu (IRSJD), Barcelona, Spain
BCNatal – Barcelona Center for Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital Clínic), University of Barcelona, Spain
DOI
URI
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Series or journal
Developmental Science
ISSN
Periodical volume
26
Periodical issue
5
Article ID
e13362
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
Nein
Language
English
Keyword
infant
language
newborn
plasticity
prenatal
speech auditory brainstem response
Abstract
Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother’s voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F0 =113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F0. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F0 as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.
Description
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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Published version
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