Loehn, Leonie and Dunn, Kirsty and To, Michelle and Reid, Vincent Michael (2026) The functional foetal brain : A systematic review and meta-analysis. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: 101708. ISSN 1878-9293 (In Press)
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This work examines functional magnetic resonance imaging and foetal magnetoencephalography studies that measure foetal auditory and visual evoked responses during the third trimester of gestation. A prior study (Dunn et al., 2015) found inconsistent results caused by huge methodological variability. The current review aims to update Dunn et al. (2015) to give a better understanding of when sensory abilities emerge. It also seeks to explore work related to atypical populations on the development of sensory systems and compare them to typical development. 46 studies were included from initial 528 reports. They demonstrate that auditory stimuli activate primarily temporal areas whereas visual stimuli activate only frontal regions. They also show that latencies and amplitudes of foetal evoked responses are comparable between both modalities, but are negatively affected by atypical development. Several stimulus and paradigm characteristics further moderate latency and amplitude values modality specific. Due to insufficient data regarding the gestational age, it remains inconclusive how age affects latencies and amplitudes. Older foetuses show, however, increased response rates and decreased latencies compared to younger foetuses, independent of modality. Key recommendations relate to improving data quality and comparability between studies. This will enable the development of clinical assessment tools in the future.