Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Physiology and Behavior 131, 2014, © ELSEVIER.
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of prenatal lateralization
T2 - evidence from fetal mouth movements
AU - Reissland, Nadja
AU - Francis, Brian
AU - Aydin, Ezra
AU - Mason, James
AU - Exley, Kendra
N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Physiology and Behavior 131, 2014, © ELSEVIER.
PY - 2014/5/28
Y1 - 2014/5/28
N2 - BackgroundHuman lateralized behaviors relate to the asymmetric development of the brain. Research of the prenatal origins of laterality is equivocal with some studies suggesting that fetuses exhibit lateralized behavior and other not finding such laterality. Given that by around 22 weeks of gestation the left cerebral hemisphere compared to the right is significantly larger in both male and female fetuses we expected that the right side of the fetal face would show more movement with increased gestation. This longitudinal study investigated whether fetuses from 24 to 36 weeks of gestation showed increasing lateralized behaviors during mouth opening and whether lateralized mouth movements are related to fetal age, gender and maternal self-reported prenatal stress.ParticipantsFollowing ethical approval, fifteen healthy fetuses (8 girls) of primagravid mothers were scanned four times from 24 to 36-gestation. Two types of mouth opening movements — upper lip raiser and mouth stretch — were coded in 60 scans for 10 min.ResultsWe modeled the proportion of right mouth opening for each fetal scan using a generalized linear mixed model, which takes account of the repeated measures design. There was a significant increase in the proportion of lateralized mouth openings over the period increasing by 11% for each week of gestational age (LRT change in deviance = 10.92, 1 df; p < 0.001). No gender differences were found nor was there any effect of maternally reported stress on fetal lateralized mouth movements. There was also evidence of left lateralization preference in mouth movement, although no evidence of changes in lateralization bias over time. This longitudinal study provides important new insights into the development of lateralized mouth movements from 24 to 36 weeks of gestation.
AB - BackgroundHuman lateralized behaviors relate to the asymmetric development of the brain. Research of the prenatal origins of laterality is equivocal with some studies suggesting that fetuses exhibit lateralized behavior and other not finding such laterality. Given that by around 22 weeks of gestation the left cerebral hemisphere compared to the right is significantly larger in both male and female fetuses we expected that the right side of the fetal face would show more movement with increased gestation. This longitudinal study investigated whether fetuses from 24 to 36 weeks of gestation showed increasing lateralized behaviors during mouth opening and whether lateralized mouth movements are related to fetal age, gender and maternal self-reported prenatal stress.ParticipantsFollowing ethical approval, fifteen healthy fetuses (8 girls) of primagravid mothers were scanned four times from 24 to 36-gestation. Two types of mouth opening movements — upper lip raiser and mouth stretch — were coded in 60 scans for 10 min.ResultsWe modeled the proportion of right mouth opening for each fetal scan using a generalized linear mixed model, which takes account of the repeated measures design. There was a significant increase in the proportion of lateralized mouth openings over the period increasing by 11% for each week of gestational age (LRT change in deviance = 10.92, 1 df; p < 0.001). No gender differences were found nor was there any effect of maternally reported stress on fetal lateralized mouth movements. There was also evidence of left lateralization preference in mouth movement, although no evidence of changes in lateralization bias over time. This longitudinal study provides important new insights into the development of lateralized mouth movements from 24 to 36 weeks of gestation.
KW - Human fetal development
KW - Lateralized fetal mouth movements
KW - Maternal stress
U2 - 10.1016/j.physbeh.2014.04.035
DO - 10.1016/j.physbeh.2014.04.035
M3 - Journal article
VL - 131
SP - 160
EP - 163
JO - Physiology and Behavior
JF - Physiology and Behavior
SN - 1873-507X
ER -