Infant Brain Oscillations Through Pandemic Regulations: Linking Neural Tracking, Word Comprehension, and Early Linguistic Environments During COVID-19
Karsten Heebing '25
Chemistry, Cognitive Neuroscience, with a minor in Linguistics
My thesis examined whether 10-month-old babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic differed from those born before it in how their brains responded to Dutch nursery rhymes (i.e., neural tracking, measured with EEG) and how many words they understood (reported by parents). I found no differences between the groups in word comprehension or neural tracking, suggesting that language development in babies’ first year of life remained resilient despite the pandemic’s isolating measures, and that brain activity in response to rhythmic speech at this age does not predict concurrent vocabulary comprehension.
What drew you to explore this topic?
My prior internship at Royal Auris Group, together with language and cognition courses at UCU, inspired me to write my thesis on the neural correlates of language acquisition. After meeting my supervisor in November (Dr. Caroline Junge), I was encouraged to look further into how the COVID-19 pandemic might have impacted infant language development through a neuroscientific lens.
What’s the next chapter in your journey post-graduation?
I am now preparing for an exchange semester (Fall 2025) at Queen's ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ in Kingston, Canada, where I plan to take more courses in (developmental) neuroscience. During this time, I will also be exploring internship options in the Netherlands for the subsequent 2026 Spring–Summer season.