Abstract
The first 1,000 days of life are a critical window of vulnerability to exposure to socioeconomic and health challenges (i.e. poverty/undernutrition). The Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project has been established to deliver longitudinal measures of brain development from 0 to 24 months in UK and Gambian infants and to assess the impact of early adversity. Here results from the Habituation‐Novelty Detection (HaND) functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) task at 5 and 8 months are presented (N = 62 UK; N = 115 Gambia). In the UK cohort distinct patterns of habituation and recovery of response to novelty are seen, becoming more robust from 5 to 8 months of age. In The Gambia, an attenuated habituation response is evident: a larger number of trials are required before the response sufficiently suppresses relative to the response during the first presented trials. Furthermore, recovery of response to novelty is not evident at 5 or 8 months of age. As this longitudinal study continues in The Gambia, the parallel collection of socioeconomic, caregiving, health and nutrition data will allow us to stratify how individual trajectories of habituation and recovery of response to novelty associate with different risk factors and adaptive mechanisms in greater depth. Given the increasing interest in the use of neuroimaging methods within global neurocognitive developmental studies, this study provides a novel cross‐culturally appropriate paradigm for the study of brain responses associated with attention and learning mechanisms across early development.
Highlights
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have identi‐ fied the reduction of poor cognitive development during childhood in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) as a key priority for global health research and interventions (UN, 2015)
All previous research on habitua‐ tion and novelty detection of brain responses using functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been conducted while infants sleep in contrast to this study which was undertaken while infants were awake
While previous fNIRS studies have reported detection of novelty in the neonatal period (Benavides‐Varela et al, 2011; Bouchon et al, 2015; Mahmoudzadeh et al, 2013) here the re‐ sponse was found to be weaker at the younger age point (5 months relative to 8 months)
Summary
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have identi‐ fied the reduction of poor cognitive development during childhood in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) as a key priority for global health research and interventions (UN, 2015). Africa (McCoy et al, 2016) This means that over 80 million children in LMICs fail to develop a core set of age‐appropriate skills that allow them to maintain attention, understand and follow simple direc‐ tions, communicate and cooperate with others, control aggression, and solve complex problems Compromised development of these skills may have a significant impact on their subsequent academic achievement, mental health and economic status, and their potential to lead full and productive lives and support future generations. Over the course of an infant's individual development the brain adapts both to the general features of the environment shared by others, and to the individual circumstances into which it is born (Johnson, Jones, & Gliga, 2015)
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