Irrespectively of the role of prosody these are the

Irrespectively of the role of prosody, these are the first results that establish the ability to track word order in newborn infants. Furthermore, they suggest that classical language areas such as the left inferior frontal and superior temporal regions are involved. These results mesh well with previous findings showing that the neural specialization for speech and language processing is to a large extent already in place very early in development (e.g. Dehaene-Lambertz et al., 2002; Mahmoudzadeh et al., 2013; Pena et al., 2003). They are also compatible with recent studies suggesting that the ability to track order of elements in speech (i.e. syllables), although present in young infants, might be constrained by cognitive biases (Benavides-Varela and Mehler 2015) and modulated by subtle prosodic cues (Ferry et al., 2015).
Acknowledgements This work was supported by an Emergence(s) grant from the City of Paris, an ANR grant nr. ANR-15-CE37-0009-01, a HFSP Young Investigator Grant nr. RGY-2014-073, the Labex EFL grant of the ANR progam “Investissements d’Avenir” (reference: ANR-10-LABX-0083), as well as the Marie Curie ITN grant “PredictAble” to JG. We thank Maria Clemencia Ortiz Barajas for her help with the permutation analysis. We are grateful to the personnel of the maternity of the Robert Debré Hospital, Paris, for their support and help with recruitment and testing.
Introduction Neurodevelopmental models have identified the onset of adolescence, marked by the biological transition into puberty, as a time of profound changes in motivation, cognition, behavior, and social relationships. These models have helped to identify the peripubertal time as a sensitive aldose reductase inhibitors of learning, particularly the social and emotional learning necessary to navigate new social contexts and process emerging self-relevant emotions (Telzer 2016; Crone and Dahl, 2012). However, despite the emergence of many excellent models highlighting the importance of puberty for neural development and new, adaptive learning (e.g. (Blakemore 2012; Braams et al., 2015; Crone and Dahl, 2012; Giedd et al., 2006; James et al., 2012; Peper and Dahl, 2013), these models give limited consideration to the importance of adolescence as a sensitive period for romantic and sexual development. In the few cases when romance and sexuality are considered in these developmental models, they tend to emphasize sexual development as negative risk behavior (i.e., a risk-framework of sexual behavior) (Ewing et al., 2014; Goldenberg et al. 2013; James et al., 2012; Victor and Hariri, 2015). Although we acknowledge the importance of considering negative developmental trajectories related to risky or reckless sexual behavior, it is equally important to consider the normative, healthy aspects of sexual and romantic development, and the neurodevelopmental underpinnings of learning about romantic and sexual behavior. Studies using a sexual risk framework have helped to identify some of the underlying neural correlates associated with health-harming sexual decision-making, but, unfortunately, these studies have done little to expand our understanding of normative sexual development trajectories. For example, among sexually active older adolescents (15–17 years old), self-reported sexual risk taking negatively correlated with activation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during a laboratory response inhibition task (Goldenberg et al., 2013). Similarly, in a study of 14–15 year-old young women, making a high-risk sexual decision on a laboratory task was associated with activation in the anterior cingulate (Hensel et al., 2015). These studies suggest that individuals with increased cognitive control during response inhibition and less activation in the anterior cingulate may make more responsible sexual decisions, but do little to enhance our understanding of normative developmental trajectories. Moving beyond a risk framework in neurodevelopmental research is essential for identifying neural processes associated with positive romantic and sexual development.