Development of Gamma Oscillation during Sentence Processing in Early Adolescence: Insights into the Maturation of Semantic Processing

Abstract

Children’s ability to retrieve word meanings and incorporate them into sentences, along with the neural structures that support these skills, continues to evolve throughout adolescence. Theta (4–8 Hz) activity that corresponds to word retrieval in children decreases in power and becomes more localized with age. This bottom-up word retrieval is often paired with changes in gamma (31–70 Hz), which are thought to reflect semantic unification in adults. Here, we studied gamma engagement during sentence processing using EEG time–frequency in children (ages 8–15) to unravel the developmental trajectory of the gamma network during sentence processing. Children heavily rely on semantic integration for sentence comprehension, but as they mature, semantic and syntactic processing units become distinct and localized. We observed a similar developmental shift in gamma oscillation around age 11, with younger groups (8–9 and 10–11) exhibiting broadly distributed gamma activity with higher amplitudes, while older groups (12–13 and 14–15) exhibited smaller and more localized gamma activity, especially over the left central and posterior regions. We interpret these findings as support for the argument that younger children rely more heavily on semantic processes for sentence comprehension than older children. And like adults, semantic processing in children is associated with gamma activity.