PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Saito, Y AU - Aoyama, S AU - Kondo, T AU - Fukumoto, R AU - Konishi, N AU - Nakamura, K AU - Kobayashi, M AU - Toshima, T TI - Frontal cerebral blood flow change associated with infant-directed speech AID - 10.1136/adc.2006.097949 DP - 2007 Mar 01 TA - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition PG - F113--F116 VI - 92 IP - 2 4099 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/92/2/F113.short 4100 - http://fn.bmj.com/content/92/2/F113.full SO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed2007 Mar 01; 92 AB - Objective: To examine the auditory perception of maternal utterances by neonates using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Methods: Twenty full-term, healthy neonates were included in this study. The neonates were tested in their cribs while they slept in a silent room. First, two probe holders were placed on the left and right sides of the forehead over the eyebrows using double-sided adhesive tape. The neonates were then exposed to auditory stimuli in the form of infant-directed speech (IDS) or adult-directed speech (ADS), sampled from each of the mothers, through an external auditory speaker. Results: A 2 (stimulus: IDS and ADS) × 2 (recording site: channel 1 (right side) and channel 2 (left side)) analysis of variance for these relative oxygenated haemoglobin values showed that IDS (Mean = 0.25) increased brain function significantly (F = 3.51) more than ADS (Mean = −0.26). Conclusions: IDS significantly increased brain function compared with ADS. These results suggest that the emotional tone of maternal utterances could have a role in activating the brains of neonates to attend to the utterances, even while sleeping.