During the event, Baby-mum brain interaction: hands-on brains-on experience, researchers from the Baby-LINC (Learning through Interpersonal Neural Communication) lab use the latest wireless EEG (electroencephalography) brain imaging technology. By measuring brain activity in both mother and baby at the same time, their research is revealing how the electrical activity between two brains can become naturally synchronised during play, and how this synchronisation helps babies to learn.
Speaking about the on-going study, researcher Dr Victoria Leong, from the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge, states that mothers and infants share a close emotional bond that shapes some aspects of early brain development, and it seems that disturbances to this early bond can produce long-lasting effects.
“Mothers and infants (and indeed some other types of close human pairs) appear to share a privileged bond. This is an implicit form of communication or empathy that is most clearly evidenced through ‘behavioural synchrony’ – a mirroring of postures, gestures and even mood between mother and infant.
“Usually, this connection has an adaptive role – it keeps the mother physically and emotionally close to her baby and thereby in-tune with and responsive to their needs. However, this bi-directional connection can sometimes have unhappy consequences for the infant. For example, if a mother suffers from post-natal depression, she will tend to speak with a flattened tone that conveys sadness, and she will interact less with her baby. As a consequence, her infant will intuitively also start to vocalise less and express sadder emotional tone. We know from brain research that this goes beyond mimicry – these infants' brain patterns also show a fundamental shift from positive to negative valence (the technical term is frontal alpha power asymmetry), just like their depressed mothers. And if these infants are followed-up, their neural changes can sometimes persist and be associated with higher risk for emotional disturbances in later life.”
Another interesting factor from the preliminary findings of Dr Leong’s research reveals that brain synchrony between mothers and infants is reduced when mothers are looking away (as if distracted) as compared to when they are looking directly at their babies.
The team have also started to test whether mother-infant synchrony is higher than stranger-infant synchrony, and whether this has any consequences for language learning.
Dr Leong concludes, “Our work is just beginning, and we have yet to understand exactly how brain-to-brain synchrony is established and maintained, and what role it has in infants' cognitive and emotional processing.”
Further research into mother and child is discussed during the event, Pregnancy as a compromise: the coexistence of the mother and her baby. Professor Ashley Moffett, who leads the 'Maternal, Neonatal Reproductive Health Research’ theme of the Wellcome Trust Cambridge Centre for Global Health Research, describes how immune system genes act to ensure the compromise between adequate nourishment of a baby but that it also does not become so large that delivery through the pelvis is impossible. Professor Moffett also reveals how the study of these genes is leading to new understanding of the causes of maternal mortality.
In another related event, Building babies: the key to life-long health, Graham Burton, Professor of the Physiology of Reproduction at the University of Cambridge, introduces the concept of developmental programming, whereby a person’s risk of chronic disease in adulthood is related to their development in the womb. Professor Burton explores some of the possible mechanisms involved, the role of the placenta in supplying the necessary nutrients for baby growth, and illustrates how current research into placental function is changing our understanding of problems related to pregnancy, birth and childhood. The talk concludes by considering some of the broader implications of developmental programming for public health policy.
Image copyright: Crystal Hendrix Hirschorn
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