Capturing the developing brain in motion: A practical tutorial for recording mobile EEG in naturally moving children

Authors

Werwach, A., Power, S. D., Werkle-Bergner, M., Lindenberger, U., Jessen, S.

Abstract

This tutorial seeks to facilitate the use of mobile electroencephalography (EEG) in young chil-dren. Mobile EEG allows researchers to investigate neural correlates of behavioral and cognitive processes in ecologically valid settings. While mobile EEG has been widely adopted in adult re-search, studies applying it to freely moving children remain scarce. However, investigating neural processes during active behavior and in interaction with movement is indispensable for advancing our understanding of neural correlates of cognitive development in early childhood. Here, we provide a practical tutorial on the collection and preprocessing of mobile EEG data from chil-dren. Drawing on experience and data from a large-scale study with toddlers, we summarize key methodological considerations, discuss common challenges and practical recommendations, and present a preprocessing pipeline developed for developmental mobile EEG data. In addition, we provide example EEG datasets from naturally moving 18-20-month-old toddlers. We argue that incorporating mobile EEG into developmental cognitive neuroscience allows researchers to (i) investigate cognitive development in naturalistic environments, (ii) examine associations among bodily movement, neural activity, and behavior, and (iii) study samples that are difficult to reach with stationary research.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 28 Jul 2026.

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