Family-centered music therapy-Empowering premature infants and their primary caregivers through music: Results of a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: In Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) premature infants are exposed to various acoustic, environmental and emotional stressors which have a negative impact on their development and the mental health of their parents. Family-centred music therapy bears the potential to positively influence these stressors. The few existing studies indicate that interactive live-improvised music therapy interventions both reduce parental stress factors and support preterm infants' development. METHODS: The present randomized controlled longitudinal study (RCT) with very low and extremely low birth weight infants (born <30+0 weeks of gestation) and their parents analyzed the influence of music therapy on both the physiological development of premature infants and parental stress factors. In addition, possible interrelations between infant development and parental stress were explored. 65 parent-infant-pairs were enrolled in the study. The treatment group received music therapy twice a week from the 21st day of life till discharge from hospital. The control group received treatment as usual. RESULTS: Compared to the control group, infants in the treatment group showed a 11.1 days shortening of caffeine therapy, 12.1 days shortening of nasogastric/ orogastric tube feed and 15.5 days shortening of hospitalization, on average. While these differences were not statistically significant, a factor-analytical compound measure of all three therapy durations was. From pre-to-post-intervention, parents showed a significant reduction in stress factors. However, there were no differences between control and treatment group. A regression analysis showed links between parental stress factors and physiological development of the infants. CONCLUSION: This pilot study suggests that a live-improvised interactive music therapy intervention for extremely and very preterm infants and their parents may have a beneficial effect on the therapy duration needed for premature infants before discharge from hospital is possible. The study identified components of the original physiological variables of the infants as appropriate endpoints and suggested a slight change in study design to capture possible effects of music therapy on infants' development as well. Further studies should assess both short-term and long-term effects on premature infants as well as on maternal and paternal health outcomes, to determine whether a family-centered music therapy, actually experienced as an added value to developmental care, should be part of routine care at the NICU.

Simultaneous EEG and fMRI reveals a causally connected subcortical-cortical network during reward anticipation.

Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have been used to study the neural correlates of reward anticipation, but the interrelation of EEG and fMRI measures remains unknown. The goal of the present study was to investigate this relationship in response to a well established reward anticipation paradigm using simultaneous EEG-fMRI recording in healthy human subjects. Analysis of causal interactions between the thalamus (THAL), ventral-striatum (VS), and supplementary motor area (SMA), using both mediator analysis and dynamic causal modeling, revealed that (1) THAL fMRI blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activity is mediating intermodal correlations between the EEG contingent negative variation (CNV) signal and the fMRI BOLD signal in SMA and VS, (2) the underlying causal connectivity network consists of top-down regulation from SMA to VS and SMA to THAL along with an excitatory information flow through a THAL→VS→SMA route during reward anticipation, and (3) the EEG CNV signal is best predicted by a combination of THAL fMRI BOLD response and strength of top-down regulation from SMA to VS and SMA to THAL. Collectively, these findings represent a likely neurobiological mechanism mapping a primarily subcortical process, i.e., reward anticipation, onto a cortical signature.

Exposure to uncontrollable stress and the postimperative negative variation (PINV): prior control matters.

The main goal of this study was to assess cortical functioning as indexed by the postimperative negative variation (PINV) induced by uncontrollable stress. Sixty-six persons were randomly assigned to three groups who underwent different sequences of stressor controllability. Within an S1-S2 paradigm, one group had initial control over aversive stimulation followed by loss of control and restitution of control. The other groups initially experienced either uncontrollability or controllability followed by a condition of control. Uncontrollable stress significantly enhanced PINV magnitudes independent of preceding control. However, control over aversive stimulation prior to loss of control normalized PINVs during restitution of control. Persons not experiencing prior control showed enhanced PINVs, longer reaction times, and more errors during restitution of control. We conclude that cortical activation changes are linked to the evaluation of instrumental contingencies. However, the exact determination of brain regions involved in the processing of uncontrollable stress needs further investigation.