Dr. Sahar Moghimi

BIO

Dr. Sahar Moghimi is a Professor in Neuroscience at the Groupe de Recherche sur l’Analyse Multimodale de la Fonction Cérébrale (Université de Picardie–Inserm UMR1105), Amiens, France. Before joining GRAMFC in 2020, she was an Associate Professor at Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran.
Her research focuses on early neurodevelopment: the link between spontaneous neural activity and how the developing brain starts to process exogenous information. She studies this in newborns, premature newborns, and young infants using different neuroimaging techniques. She is the principal investigator of several national and international projects exploring the impact of premature birth and early musical interventions on the development of auditory rhythm processing.

Abstract

The auditory system becomes functional during the late second trimester of gestation and the thalamic afferents arrive at the cortical plate around the beginning of the third trimester of gestation. This period represents a critical checkpoint along the neurodevelopmental journey during which exogenous stimulibegin to significantly contribute to neuroplastic changes underlying the development of sensory systems and neural networks. Characterization of early encoding of exogenous information helps to better understand the developing brain and detect early deviations and risks.

Auditory rhythm experience begins remarkably early in human life. Growing evidence suggests that this early exposure is not merely incidental, but it plays a fundamental role in early development. Together with my team and my colleagues, we aim to characterize the early development of auditory rhythm processing and explore how it may be modulated by factors such as premature birth and early environmental influences.

In this talk, I will review our recent findings on early neural capacities for auditory rhythm processing, and how these capacities emerge and evolve from the beginning of the third trimester of gestation in preterm newborns to young infants at 18 months. These insights are drawn from recordings of neural activity using electroencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy in preterm and full-term newborns exposed to auditory stimuli during sleep, as well as EEG and eye-tracking recordings in older infants presented with more naturalistic rhythmic audiovisual stimuli. Finally, I will discuss the potential applications of early rhythm-based assessments and interventions, particularly for populations at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders.