The Effect of Gamma Waves on Cognitive and Language Skills in Children

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Researcher Uncovers Link Between Gamma Wave Brain Activity and Early Development

October 20, 2008

Source:  Rutgers University

New studies conducted by April Benasich, professor of neuroscience at Rutgers

University in Newark, and her colleagues reveal that gamma wave activity in the

brains of children provide a window into their cognitive development, and could

open the way for more effective intervention for those likely to experience

language problems.

“Research into the adult brain has shown that gamma activity is the ‘glue’ that

binds together perceptions, thoughts and memories,” notes Benasich. “Little

research, however, has been conducted into the development of gamma activity in

the infant brain and its possible connection to cognitive and language skills.”

Benasich and her research team are the first to look at “resting” gamma power in

the frontal cortex, the “thinking” part of the brain, in children 16, 24 and 36

months old. In an article published online and in an upcoming issue of

Behavioral Brain Research, Benasich offers significant new insight into the

likely role gamma activity plays in supporting emerging cognitive and language

abilities during the first 36 months of life.

Gamma waves are fast, high-frequency, rhythmic brain responses that have been

shown to spike when higher cognitive processes are engaged. Research in adults

and animals suggests that lower levels of gamma power might hinder the brain’s

ability to efficiently package information into coherent images, thoughts and

memories. However, until now little has been known about the developmental

course of gamma power in children.

Analyzing the children’s EEGs (electroencephalograms), Benasich and her research

team found that those with higher language and cognitive abilities had

correspondingly higher gamma power than those with poorer language and cognitive

scores. Similarly, children with better attention and inhibitory control, the

ability to moderate or refrain from behavior when instructed, also had higher

gamma power. There were no differences in gamma power based on gender or

socio-economic status.

The measurements were obtained by placing a soft bonnet with 62 sensors on the

heads of the children as they sat on a parent’s lap and quietly played. In

separate tests, children were evaluated for their emerging language and

cognitive skills. The researchers looked both at children from families with

normal language development and those at higher risk for problems because they

were born into families with a history of language disorders. As suspected, the

group of children with a family history of language impairments showed lower

levels of gamma activity.

“We believe that maturation of the brain mechanisms that support gamma activity

and those critical for mounting normal language and cognitive development may be

occurring simultaneously,” says Benasich. “We seem to have identified a window,

during a period of sustained and dramatic linguistic and cognitive growth, that

can help us to better determine where a child is developmentally.”

Such an understanding could provide for earlier and more effective intervention.

For example, if a child is found to have lower than average resting gamma,

intervention and learning methods could be instituted as a preventative measure.

Such early intervention possibly also could result in increasing gamma power in

the frontal cortex.

In her other related research, Benasich has discovered that how well infants

distinguish differences in successive rapidly occurring tone sequences is a good

predictor of future language problems and that it can be determined as early as

three months whether a baby will struggle with language development. These

latest findings appear to show that the emergence of strong gamma activity is

critical for linguistic and cognitive development and that children at risk for

language impairments may lag in this process.

“Having strong bursts of gamma appears to assist the brain in making the neural

connections needed for effective language development,” says Benasich. “By

measuring gamma activity in the frontal cortex, which is the last brain area to

mature and is used to make decisions and solve problems, we may be able to tell

how well the brain is developing in general.”

Being able to determine a child’s level of development could allow for more

effective treatment at a critical point in time when the brain is laying the

foundations for cognition and language and establishing efficient connections

for future learning. From 16 to 36 months, there is a dramatic explosion of

linguistic and cognitive growth; children rush headlong into language, rapidly

developing their skills, increasing from a vocabulary of 100 words to 1,000

words, learning that words stand for objects, and that words not only are

associated with a specific object but categories, such as “dog” representing not

just a single animal but all dogs.

“During this intense learning period, they are little scientists in their

environment putting things together and figuring things out,” says Benasich.

“Lower levels of gamma power in the resting brain may provide a ‘red flag’

indicating that a child will experience language or attentional problems.

Knowing that may allow us to provide effective intervention during this critical

learning period.”

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" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport