# Discovering how emerging oscillatory dynamics interact with attention to shape memory representations in infancy

> **NIH NIH F32** · COLUMBIA UNIV NEW YORK MORNINGSIDE · 2024 · $73,828

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT
Cognitive development in infancy includes both learning to attend and attending to learn (Forest & Amso, in
press). In other words, the emerging relationship between learning and attention is bidirectional, but the precise
neural mechanisms which guide their reciprocal development are unknown. Attention can be conceptualized as
an ongoing competition for neural resources within and between bottom-up and top-down signals, the winner of
which is ‘attended’. In adults, EEG data indicate low-frequency, top-down oscillations originating in anterior brain
regions modulate higher-frequency, bottom-up, more posterior oscillations via “phase-amplitude coupling”
(PAC). PAC is thus a promising candidate for studying top-down/bottom-up competition in the infant brain.
Critically, these oscillatory shifts have consequences for memory. This proposal is the first we know of to test
the idea that attention and memory development are intertwined, such that PAC changes with age (Aim 1) and
learning from past experience (Aim 2a), with cascading effects on infants’ visual selective attention and memory
representations (Aim 2b). For Aim 1, we will chart PAC longitudinally from 3-24 months, as characterizing this
balance across the first years of life offers novel insight into how attention is instantiated in the developing brain.
Our pilot results support the hypothesis that theta-gamma PAC increases after 12mos, reflecting increasing
contributions of top-down signal on posterior brain function. For Aim 2a we will further link the co-emergence of
learning and attention by asking if prior experience quickly influences the balance of top-down/bottom-up neural
signals. Infants (6-24mos) will complete a memory-guided-attention task during EEG. All trials show a target
image amongst distractors. Some trials repeat, while others are new. We will compute PAC for each trial, and
predict that PAC will dynamically increase over repeated trials, and that this increase will correlate with behavioral
indices of memory-guided attention. To truly probe the co-evolving of PAC and infant learning, Aim 2b is to
explain how PAC relates to developmental change in memory. In adults, stronger PAC leads to more consistent
high-frequency activity, and high-frequency activity predicts memory specificity. Less consistent representations
are associated with forming general memories in children and adults in other learning contexts. Thus, as PAC
matures, bottom-up signals might become more consistent, and infants might remember increasingly specific
details about their experiences. Following the memory guided-attention task, we will test infants’ specific and
general memory for targets. Then, using spectral pattern similarity analyses, we will examine the consistency of
the EEG signal across memory-guided attention trials. We predict infants who show less high-frequency neural
similarity across repeated trials will show more general memory on the memory test. That is, as PAC in...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10996977
- **Project number:** 1F32HD116657-01
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIV NEW YORK MORNINGSIDE
- **Principal Investigator:** Tess Forest
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $73,828
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-11-16 → 2027-11-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10996977

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10996977, Discovering how emerging oscillatory dynamics interact with attention to shape memory representations in infancy (1F32HD116657-01). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-24 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/10996977. Licensed CC0.

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