Newborns Display Brain Activity Matching Number of Syllables and Dots

Researchers recorded electrical activity from 21 newborns aged 0 to 3 days using EEG caps fitted with sensors across the brain. The infants listened to 90-second recordings of a voice repeating syllables in groups of four or 12 while viewing visual stimuli of four or 12 dots for up to 50 seconds.

Electrical activity in the parietotemporal area decreased when the number of dots matched the number of syllables.

Activity rose when the numbers did not match. The pattern matches repetition suppression observed in adult brains, in which repeated stimuli elicit reduced responses. Marco Buiatti at the University of Trento led the work.

“It’s the first time we’ve shown a neural mechanism for this innate sense of number,” he said. Brian Butterworth at University College London, who was not involved, noted that extracting numerical information functions like perceiving color for most people. The recordings occurred within days or hours after birth.

A child’s number sense at age 1 predicts mathematics skills years later. Buiatti said further research could support an early neural biomarker for risk of dyscalculia, a learning difficulty affecting understanding or use of numerical information. The study was published as a preprint on bioRxiv with DOI 10.64898/2026.05.08.723896.