Singing to the baby or listening to music through speakers during pregnancy helps the baby to be born with a better ability to encode the sounds of language. This is clear from a study led by Professor Carles Escera, head of the cognitive neuroscience research group (Brainlab) and the Institute of Neurosciences (UBNeuro) of the UB and the Sant Joan de Deu Research Institute, which provides new evidence on the effects of prenatal exposure to music.
Specifically, and as stated in the article published in the journal Developmental Science, daily musical exposure during the last weeks of pregnancy is associated with better encoding of low-frequency sound components, which could improve, for example, the perception of tone by the newborn.
Researchers have analyzed the neonatal frequency tracking response (RSF), a neurophonic auditory potential that is affected by various speech and language impairments and has also been shown to be conditioned by the fetal environment and the acoustic environment. prenatal.
In fact, according to the study authors, this measurement could be used as a biomarker to detect the risk of language disorders and adopt preventive measures in the initial stages of a child’s life.
Escera’s work, carried out in collaboration with Maria Dolores Gómez Roig (Head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sant Joan de Déu), is based on the comparison of RSF records of 60 healthy babies, aged between 12 and 72 hours: to 29 they were exposed to music daily and 31 were not. And by means of an encephalogram, his reaction to two different speech stimuli was observed.
The results reveal that those who had listened to music had a more robust encoding of speech stimuli, which may facilitate early language acquisition and processing. “Musical stimulation reaches the auditory system with low-frequency rhythmic components that train it to organize neuronal plasticity”, explained Sonia Arenillas Alcón, first author of the article and member of Brainlab, when presenting the results.
In contrast, prenatal musical stimulation has no effect on neuronal transmission speed.
Escera, for his part, points out that the results of this work can be put into clinical practice and suggests that, for example, babies born with low birth weight could benefit from a musical intervention program to improve their brain response.
