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Severe respiratory disease caused by human respiratory syncytial virus impairs language learning during early infancy
Medicine and HealthScientific Reports

Severe respiratory disease caused by human respiratory syncytial virus impairs language learning during early infancy

M. Peña, C. Jara, et al.

This study reveals alarming insights into how severe respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) infection in infants might stunt their language development. Conducted by a team of experts, it shows that infants affected by hRSV demonstrate persistent difficulties in distinguishing native from non-native phonetic contrasts, raising concerns about their future communicative skills.... show more
Abstract
Human respiratory syncytial virus infection is a leading cause of pediatric morbidity and mortality. A previous murine study showed that during severe acute respiratory infections the virus invades the central nervous system, and that infected animals evolve with long-lasting learning difficulties associated with long-term potentiation impairment in their hippocampus. We hypothesized here that human infants who presented a severe episode of respiratory syncytial virus infection before 6 months of age would develop long-term learning difficulties. We measured the acquisition of the native phoneme repertoire during the first year, a milestone in early human development, comprising a reduction in the sensitivity to the irrelevant nonnative phonetic information and an increase in the sensitivity to the information relevant for the native one. We found that infants with a history of severe respiratory infection by the human respiratory syncytial virus presented poor distinction of native and nonnative phonetic contrasts at 6 months of age, and remained atypically sensitive to nonnative contrasts at 12 months, which associated with weak communicative abilities. Our results uncover previously unknown long-term language learning difficulties associated with a single episode of severe respiratory infection by the human respiratory syncytial virus, which could relate to memory impairments.
Publisher
Scientific Reports
Published On
Dec 21, 2020
Authors
Marcela Peña, Cristina Jara, Juan C. Flores, Rodrigo Hoyos-Bachiloglu, Carolina Iturriaga, Mariana Medina, Javier Carcey, Janyra Espinoza, Karen Bohmwald, Alexis M. Kalergis, Arturo Borzutzky
Tags
respiratory syncytial viruslanguage learninginfantsphonetic contrastscommunicative abilities
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