Public defence in Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, M.Sc. (Tech) Pauliina Yrjölä

Title of the doctoral thesis: Electroencephalographic functional connectivity analysis in preterm infants

Doctoral student: Pauliina Yrjölä
Opponent: Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr. Amir Omidvarnia, Research Center Juelich, Germany 
Custos: Prof. Matias Palva, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

Development and support of functional brain networks in preterm infants during the NICU stay 

The premature birth of preterm infants coincides with a critical time window for brain development. Interferences in the normal development of brain networks during this period can cause life-long adversities in cognitive, language, and motor outcomes, which are often found in preterm-born children. This is why ensuring the normal functional development of the preterm infants’ brain networks is a central target of neonatal intensive care. There are several recent endeavours to improve the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) environment via interventions that provide additional sensory or emotional enrichment. However, the development of functional brain networks, or the effect of prematurity on them, has still been unknown, and the NICU-based interventions have lacked direct evidence on their effectiveness in improving brain networks. 

In this thesis, the development of functional brain networks was studied during the neonatal period and the effect of facilitating the parent-infant emotional contact during the NICU stay was evaluated on functional networks. The studies were performed using electroencephalographic recordings and modern functional connectivity analysis, which provides a computational means for assessing functional brain networks. The results show that the brain networks of preterm-born infants differ from those of term-born healthy controls, and that the strength of the preterm functional networks correlates with improved neurological outcomes. Strikingly, the results of this Thesis show that supporting the emotional contact between the parent and their preterm infant improved the infants’ brain networks to the extent that they were comparable to those of term-born controls. Finally, this Thesis presents the development of different modes of neuronal coupling during the neonatal period. 

Contributing information of the functional development of brain networks during the neonatal period and on the effect of prematurity on these networks, the results of this Thesis have an importance to both neonatal neuroscience and clinical knowledge. In particular, the positive effect of facilitating the emotional contact between the parent and their preterm infant in the NICU has a salient global impact, because care practices of this kind are equally accessible regardless of the resources of a medical facility or individual patient

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Doctoral theses in the School of Science: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/52