The impact of premature extrauterine exposure on infants’ stimulus-evoked brain activity across multiple sensory systems

Prematurity can result in widespread neurodevelopmental impairment, with the impact of premature extrauterine exposure on brain function detectable in infancy. A range of neurodynamic and haemodynamic functional brain measures have previously been employed to study the neurodevelopmental impact of prematurity, with methodological and analytical heterogeneity across studies obscuring how multiple sensory systems are affected. Here, we outline a standardised template analysis approach to measure the evoked response magnitudes for visual, tactile, and noxious stimulation within individual infants (n=15) using EEG. By studying a cohort of very preterm infants longitudinally (n=10), we observe that the evoked response template magnitudes are significantly associated with age-related maturation. In a subsequent cross-sectional study, we observe significant differences in visual and tactile response template magnitudes between infants born in the very preterm and late preterm periods (n=10 and 8), age-matched at study. These findings demonstrate the significant impact of premature extrauterine exposure on brain function and suggest that prematurity can accelerate maturation of the visual and tactile sensory system in infants born very prematurely. This study highlights the value of using a standardised multi-modal evoked-activity analysis approach to assess premature neurodevelopment, and will likely complement resting-state EEG and behavioural assessments in the study of the functional impact of developmental care interventions. Highlights Multi-modal sensory stimulation is used to assess premature infant brain function A template analysis approach is outlined for multi-modal stimulus-evoked EEG activity Stimulus-evoked template magnitudes change with age Prematurity results in accelerated maturation of visual and tactile sensory systems