Nadège Roche-Labarbe completed her Doctoral work in Amiens, France, studying the neurovascular response using simultaneous fNIRS and EEG in preterm neonates, in epileptic children, and in animal models. Her postdoctoral training at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging (Boston MA, USA) focused on optical imaging for clinical and cognitive applications in premature and hospitalized neonates. As junior faculty at the University of Caen, France, she started focusing on finding neonatal endophenotypes of neurodevelopmental disorders. She is now an Associate Professor at the University of Caen, and her team investigates the development of predictive coding in preterm neonates and how this relates to their neurodevelopmental outcome, using longitudinal protocols and multimodal neuroimaging.

Somatosensory prediction in newborns: effect of prematurity and relationship with neurodevelopment at age 2

Sensory prediction (SP)—the brain’s capacity to anticipate incoming stimuli based on prior experience—is a fundamental component of cognitive and motor development, as well as postural adaptation. It enables experience-based and context-dependent modulation of sensory processing. Alterations in SP have been hypothesized to contribute to motor and cognitive symptoms observed in neurodevelopmental disorders (ND), though empirical evidence remains limited. In this study, we assessed SP in 84 preterm infants born between 24 and 34 weeks of gestational age (GA), using EEG event-related potentials during a tactile oddball-omission paradigm conducted at 35 weeks equivalent GA. Our findings demonstrate that SP is already functional in preterm neonates, particularly those with longer exposure to extrauterine sensory environments, suggesting that the preterm brain actively regulates sensory input, potentially as an adaptive response to the stressors of neonatal intensive care. However, such adaptations may have downstream consequences for neurodevelopment. We are currently conducting follow-up assessments at 2 years of age, including psychomotor and sleep quality evaluations, to investigate associations between neonatal SP and later neurodevelopmental outcomes. Preliminary findings indicate a potential link between early SP measures and sleep patterns, highlighting the promise of SP as an early biomarker for identifying infants at risk and informing timely intervention strategies.