The Effect of C-Section Birth on Attention Task Performance and Cortical Grey Matter Integrity

Abstract

Past evidence suggests that Caesarean section (C-section) birth is a factor in reduced performance on visual attention tasks, as well as altered intrinsic functional neural networks, for both infants and adults born via C-section. The present study tested C-section and vaginally born adults on six tasks: a visual search task, the Attention Network Task, the Sustained Attention to Response Task, the Stroop Task, the Trail Making Test, and an n-back task. Adults born via C-section were less accurate on target-absent conditions in the visual search task. No other tests showed significant differences based on birth method. Additionally, whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analysis was conducted on the anatomical magnetic resonance imaging data of adults to identify potential effects of C-section birth on cortical grey-matter integrity. Findings suggest that there is an effect of C-section birth on top-down attention but were not significant for other hypotheses in the experiment and MRI analysis.