Salome Kurth

Université de Fribourg · Département de psychologie

Infancy represents a critical period during which thalamocortical brain connections develop and mature. Deviations in the maturation of thalamocortical connectivity are linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. There is a lack of early biomarkers to detect and localize neuromaturational deviations, which can be overcome with mapping through high-dens...

Brain connectivity closely reflects brain function and behavior. Sleep EEG coherence, a measure of brain’s connectivity during sleep, undergoes pronounced changes across development under the influence of environmental factors. Yet, the determinants of the developing brain’s sleep EEG coherence from the child’s family environment remain unknown. Af...

Confinements due to the COVID-19 outbreak affected sleep and mental health of adults, adolescents and children. Already preschool children experienced acutely worsened sleep, yet the possible resulting effects on executive functions remain unexplored. Longitudinally, sleep quality predicts later behavioral-cognitive outcomes. Accordingly, we propos...

Brain connectivity closely reflects brain function and behavior. Sleep EEG coherence, a measure of brain’s connectivity during sleep, undergoes pronounced changes across development under the influence of environmental factors. Yet, the determinants of the developing brain’s sleep EEG coherence from the child’s family environment remain unknown. Af...

Introduction Brain connectivity is tied to cognitive development and behavior. Previous work suggests that interactions with the environment tune the maturing patterns of brain connectivity. As the relevant environmental factors remain largely unknown, we examined whether the sleep-related familial context is associated with infant brain functional...

Sleep disorders have been linked to alterations of gut microbiota composition in adult humans and animal models, but it is unclear how this link develops. With longitudinal assessments in 162 healthy infants, we present a so far unrecognized sleep-brain-gut interrelationship. First, we report a link between sleep habits and gut microbiota: daytime...

Infancy represents a critical period during which thalamocortical brain connections develop and mature. Deviations in the maturation of thalamocortical connectivity are linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. There is a lack of early biomarkers to detect and localize neuromaturational deviations, which can be overcome with mapping through high-dens...

Infancy represents a critical period during which thalamocortical brain connections develop and mature. Deviations in the maturation of thalamocortical connectivity are linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. There is a lack of early biomarkers to detect and localize neuromaturational deviations, which can be overcome with mapping through high-dens...

Adequate sleep is critical for development and facilitates the maturation of the neurophysiological circuitries at the basis of cognitive and behavioral function. Observational research has associated sleep problems in early life with worse later cognitive, psychosocial, and somatic health outcomes. Yet, the extent to which day-to-day sleep habits...

Adequate sleep is critical for development and facilitates the maturation of the neurophysiological circuitries at the basis of cognitive and behavioral function. Observational research has associated sleep problems in early life with worse later cognitive, psychosocial, and somatic health outcomes. Yet, the extent to which day-to-day sleep habits...

Sleep problems are frequently reported in infants treated with propranolol for infantile hemangiomas, possibly serving as a marker for a negative impact on central nervous system function. In this cohort study, we objectively investigate the sleep behavior of infants with infantile hemangiomas on propranolol compared to a healthy, untreated control...

Study objectives During infancy, adequate sleep is crucial for physical and neurocognitive development. In adults and children, night-time noise exposure is associated with sleep disturbances. However, whether and to what extent infants’ sleep is affected, is unknown. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between nocturnal transportation n...

Plasticity of synaptic strength and density is a vital mechanism enabling memory consolidation, learning, and neurodevelopment. It is strongly dependent on the intact function of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR). The importance of NMDAR is further evident as their dysfunction is involved in many diseases such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's dis...

Study objectives: During infancy, adequate sleep is crucial for physical and neurocognitive development. In adults and children, night-time noise exposure is associated with sleep disturbances. However, whether and to what extent infants’ sleep is affected, is unknown. Thus, this study investigated the relationship between nocturnal transportation...

The COVID-19 confinement has dramatically altered daily routines, causing decreased sleep quality in adults. This necessitates careful observation, as sleep plays a crucial role in brain maturation and poor sleep increases the risk of psychopathology, particularly in the young population. Through an online survey with one baseline (April 2020) and...

Infancy is a period of marked development, entailing many maturation processes that lay the foundation for later health. Two crucial health factors in infancy are the establishment of a sleep-wake rhythm and the growth of gut bacterial diversity - both have been linked to later cognitive and physiological outcomes. In adults and animal models, evid...

Sleep during infancy is important for the well-being of both infant and parent. Therefore, there is large interest in characterizing infant sleep with reliable tools, for example by combining actigraphy with 24-h-diaries. However, it is critical to select the right variables to characterize sleep. In a longitudinal investigation, we collected sleep...

Sleep is ubiquitous during infancy and important for the well-being of both infant and 16 parent. Therefore, there is large interest to characterize infant sleep with reliable tools, for example 17 by means of combining actigraphy with 24-h-diaries. However, it is critical to select the right 18 variables to characterize sleep. With a principal com...

Actigraphy is a cost‐efficient method to estimate sleep–wake patterns over long periods in natural settings. However, the lack of methodological standards in actigraphy research complicates the generalization of outcomes. A rapidly growing methodological diversity is visible in the field, which increasingly necessitates the detailed reporting of me...

Objective sleep quality can be measured by electroencephalography (EEG), a non-invasive technique to quantify electrical activity generated by the brain. With EEG, sleep depth is measured by appearance and an increase in slow wave activity (scalp-SWA). EEG slow waves (scalp-SW) are the manifestation of underlying synchronous membrane potential tran...

Introduction Slow-wave activity (SWA) shows an inverted U-shaped time course during development. Specifically, maximal SWA undergoes a posteroanterior shift from 2 to 20 years of age, which may reflect cortical maturation. Previously, we showed that greater slow sigma power during sleep predicted faster reaction time in preschool-aged children. To...

Study Objectives The restorative function of sleep has been linked to a net reduction in synaptic strength. The slope of slow-waves, a major characteristic of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, has been shown to directly reflect synaptic strength, when accounting for amplitude changes across the night. In this study, we aimed to investigate over...

Slow waves (1–4.5 Hz) are the most characteristic oscillations of deep non-rapid eye movement sleep. The EEG power in this frequency range (slow-wave activity, SWA) parallels changes in cortical connectivity (i.e., synaptic density) during development. In patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), prefrontal cortical development...

Objective/background: Learning of a visuomotor adaptation task during wakefulness leads to a local increase in slow-wave activity (SWA, EEG power between 1 and 4.5 Hz) during subsequent deep sleep. Here, we examined this relationship between learning and SWA in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Patients/methods: Part...

The aim of this investigation was to elucidate the effect of CPAP withdrawal on neurometabolic and cardiometabolic markers in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea. We evaluated 70 patients (mean age 61±10 years, 82% men) treated with CPAP in two 2-week, parallel, randomised controlled trials. CPAP withdrawal resulted in elevated 3,4-dihydroxyphen...

Epidemiological research reveals that insufficient sleep in children has negative cognitive and emotional consequences; however, the physiological underpinnings of these observations remain understudied. We tested the hypothesis that the topographical distribution of deep sleep slow wave activity during the childhood predicts brain white matter mic...

Study Objectives Only standardized objective assessments reliably capture the large variability of sleep behavior in infancy, which is the most pronounced throughout the human lifespan. This is important for clinical practice as well as basic research. Actimetry is a cost-efficient method to objectively estimate infant sleep/wake behavior from limb...

Study Objectives: Only standardized objective assessments reliably capture the large variability of sleep behavior in infancy, which is the most pronounced during the human lifespan. This is important for clinical as well as basic research. Actimetry is a cost-efficient method to objectively track infant sleep/wake behavior by assessing limb moveme...

Study Objectives Sleep slow waves behave like traveling waves and are thus a marker for brain connectivity. Across a night of sleep in adults, wave propagation is scaled down, becoming more local. Yet, it is unknown whether slow wave propagation undergoes similar across-night dynamics in childhood – a period of extensive cortical rewiring. Methods...

Introduction: Slow waves, the hallmarks of non-rapid eye-movement (NREM) sleep, are thought to reflect maturational changes that occur in the cerebral cortex throughout childhood and adolescence. Recent work in adults has revealed evidence for two distinct synchronization processes involved in the generation of slow waves, which sequentially come...

Vyazovskiy and colleagues found in rats’ multi-unit recordings brief periods of silence (off-states) in local populations of cortical neurons during wakefulness which closely resembled the characteristic off-states during sleep. These off-states became more global and frequent with increasing sleep pressure and were associated with the well-known i...

Slow oscillations, a defining characteristic of the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep electroencephalogram (EEG), proliferate across the scalp in highly reproducible patterns. In adults, the propagation of slow oscillations is a recognized fingerprint of brain connectivity and excitability. In this study, we (i) describe for the first time matura...

Disturbed sleep and altered sleep homeostasis are core features of many psychiatric disorders such as depression. Chronic uncontrollable stress is considered an important factor in the development of depression, but little is known on how chronic stress affects sleep regulation and sleep homeostasis. We therefore examined the effects of chronic soc...

Early childhood is a time of rapid developmental changes in sleep, cognitive control processes, and the regulation of emotion and behavior. This experimental study examined sleep-dependent effects on response inhibition and self-regulation, as well as whether acute sleep restriction moderated the association between these processes. Preschool child...

Brain networks respond to sleep deprivation or restriction with increased sleep depth, which is quantified as slow-wave activity (SWA) in the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG). When adults are sleep deprived, this homeostatic response is most pronounced over prefrontal brain regions. However, it is unknown how children’s developing brain networks re...

Epidemiological findings suggest short sleep duration is associated with overweight and obesity across the lifespan. In adults, experimental sleep loss increases caloric intake more than total daily energy needs, thus leading to weight gain. To date, little is known about the relationship between sleep restriction and dietary intake in preschool ch...

The shift from a biphasic to a monophasic sleep schedule is a fundamental milestone in early childhood. This transition, however, may result in periods of acute sleep loss as children may nap on some but not all days. Although data indicating the behavioral consequences of nap deprivation in young children are accumulating, little is known about ch...

Reliable markers for brain maturation are important to identify neural deviations that eventually predict the development of mental illnesses. Recent studies have proposed topographical EEG-derived slow wave activity (SWA) during NREM sleep as a mirror of cortical development. However, studies about the longitudinal stability as well as the relatio...

Although all young children nap, the neurophysiological features and associated developmental trajectories of daytime sleep remain largely unknown. Longitudinal studies of napping physiology are fundamental to understanding sleep regulation during early childhood, a sensitive period in brain and behavior development and a time when children transit...

Sleep spindles, a prominent feature of the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep electroencephalogram (EEG), are linked to cognitive abilities. Early childhood is a time of rapid cognitive and neurophysiological maturation; however, little is known about developmental changes in sleep spindles. In this study, we longitudinally examined trajectories o...

Supplementary material.

Introduction: A large number of studies have investigated neural correlates of consciousness in adults. However, knowledge about brain function in children with disorders of consciousness (DOC) is very limited. We suggest that EEG recordings during sleep are a promising approach. In healthy adults as well as in children, it has been shown that the...

Processing speed is an important contributor to working memory performance and fluid intelligence in young children. Myelinated white matter plays a central role in brain messaging, and likely mediates processing speed, but little is known about the relationship between myelination and processing speed in young children. In the present study, proce...

Background: Acquired brain injuries (ABI) such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) or stroke can result in motor, language, or cognitive impairments. Although a considerable number of studies have investigated functional recovery, underlying brain reorganization remains poorly understood. Accumulating evidence indicates that plastic processes in the b...

Cognitive development is influenced by maturational changes in processing speed, a construct reflecting the rapidity of executing cognitive operations. Although cognitive ability and processing speed are linked to spindles and sigma power in the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG), little is known about such associations in early childhood, a time of...

Caffeine is the most commonly ingested psychoactive drug worldwide with increasing consumption rates among young individuals. While caffeine leads to decreased sleep quality in adults, studies investigating how caffeine consumption affects children’s and adolescents’ sleep remain scarce. We explored the effects of regular caffeine consumption on sl...

Sleep is required for plasticity processes underlying brain maturation in animals. Sleep problems in childhood predict later psychological and social problems over and above demographic factors. Yet, it remains unknown how inadequate sleep in children affects brain activity and behavior and how developing neural networks drive this relationship. Al...

Sleep is increasingly recognized as a key process in neurodevelopment. Animal data show that sleep is essential for the maturation of fundamental brain functions, and growing epidemiological findings indicate that children with early sleep disturbance suffer from later cognitive, attentional, and psychosocial problems. Still, major gaps exist in un...

Experience-dependent plasticity, the ability of the brain to constantly adapt to an ever-changing environment, has been suggested to be highest during childhood and to decline thereafter. However, empirical evidence for this is rather scarce. Slow-wave activity (SWA; EEG activity of 1-4.5 Hz) during deep sleep can be used as a marker of experience-...

Objective: In CSWS (continuous spike waves during sleep) activation of spike waves during slow wave sleep has been causally linked to neuropsychological deficits, but the pathophysiologic mechanisms are still unknown. In healthy subjects, the overnight decrease of the slope of slow waves in NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep has been linked to br...

Sleep has beneficial effects on brain function and learning, which are reflected in plastic changes in the cortex. Early childhood is a time of rapid maturation in fundamental skills-e.g., language, cognitive control, working memory-that are predictive of future functioning. Little is currently known about the interactions between sleep and brain m...

Adolescence is a critical period for brain maturation during which a massive reorganization of cortical connectivity takes place. In humans, slow wave activity (<4.5 Hz) during NREM sleep was proposed to reflect cortical maturation which relies on use-dependent processes. A stimulant like caffeine, whose consumption has recently increased especiall...

The topographic distribution of slow wave activity (SWA, EEG power between 0.75 and 4.5 Hz) during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep was proposed to mirror cortical maturation with a typical age-related pattern. Here, we examined whether sex differences occur in SWA topography of children and adolescents (22 age-matched subjects, 11 boys, mean ag...

Slow wave activity (SWA) in non-rapid-eye-movement sleep represents a well-established marker for the homeostatic decline of sleep pressure. Evidence is accumulating that SWA plays a role in synaptic changes. Moreover, sleep SWA seems to reflect developmental changes of the cerebral cortex, which occur during childhood and adolescence. Specifically...

Electroencephalographically (EEG) recorded slow wave activity (SWA, 1-4.5Hz), reflecting the depth of sleep, is suggested to play a crucial role in synaptic plasticity. Mapping of SWA by means of high-density EEG reveals that cortical regions showing signs of maturational changes (structural and behavioral) during childhood and adolescence exhibit...

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between regional aspects of the children's sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) (high-density EEG recordings) and their intellectual ability. The spectral power in the α, σ, and β frequency ranges of 109 EEG derivations was correlated with the scores of full-scale intelligence quotient, fluid int...

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between regional aspects of the children's sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) (high-density EEG recordings) and their intellectual ability. The spectral power in the α, σ, and β frequency ranges of 109 EEG derivations was correlated with the scores of full-scale intelligence quotient, fluid int...

Deep (slow wave) sleep shows extensive maturational changes from childhood through adolescence, which is reflected in a decrease of sleep depth measured as the activity of electroencephalographic (EEG) slow waves. This decrease in sleep depth is paralleled by massive synaptic remodeling during adolescence as observed in anatomical studies, which su...