Emergent blink rate in early childhood is associated with neural origins of executive function
Ryuta Kuwamizu, Nozomi Yamamoto, Kota Otani, Yusuke Moriguchi · 2026
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Description
Ryuta Kuwamizu, Nozomi Yamamoto, Kota Otani, and Yusuke Moriguchi propose counting toddlers' eye blinks as a window on growing executive function, in a two thousand twenty-six paper on how young brains develop. Executive function grows very fast in early childhood, but its brain links are poorly mapped.
One hundred thirteen children aged about three to nearly seven years did a cognitive flexibility task while prefrontal activity was recorded with light. Older children did better and showed more right-sided, dorsal prefrontal activation. Higher blink rates on their own, a readout of neuromodulatory tone, tracked the same activation pattern and better scores. The authors present blink rate as a little-noted, easy-to-count sign of the emerging executive system.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ryuta Kuwamizu, Nozomi Yamamoto, Kota Otani, Yusuke Moriguchi |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 51 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |