Baby Brain Research Articles

‘Baby brain’ in pregnancy: A review of social psychological explanations and future research directions

AbstractThe colloquial concept of ‘baby brain’ suggests that throughout pregnancy and into the immediate postpartum period, women have reduced cognitive abilities and are more distracted, forgetful, and incompetent. To date, a plethora of cognitive and neuropsychological research testing the cognitive functioning of pregnant women relative to other groups has yielded inconsistent and unclear findings. However, there is a notable lack of literature that adopts a social psychological perspective, critically assessing the contribution of social context to the ‘baby brain’ phenomenon. In this paper, we review the current ‘baby brain’ literature and outline two potential social perspectives that provide insights into this research area: stereotype threat theory and objectification theory. We argue that inconsistencies in the ‘baby brain’ cognitive literature may be impacted by under‐explored social phenomena, which may result from activation of stereotypes or objectifying cues throughout pregnancy and into early new motherhood. We end with suggestions for future social and personality psychological research directions in the area of ‘baby brain’.

Tracking the Development of Baby Brain Tissue with Color Vision in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Tracking the Development of Baby Brain Tissue with Color Vision in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

FAKTOR RISIKO BALITA STUNTING DI PROVINSI NUSA TENGGARA BARAT

Toddler age is a golden period for the development and growth of the baby's brain which is commonly referred to as the golden period, especially the first 1000 days. Behind the importance of maintaining the growth and development of infants, there is a failure to grow in the form of short height for age due to chronic malnutrition called stunting. The province of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) has a higher prevalence of stunting than the province of Bali as the closest province to NTB, which is 33.5%, while the province of Bali is 21.9%. Stunting is caused by various factors including maternal education, sanitation, access to health care facilities, and infection. This study aims to determine the risk factors for stunting in the province of NTB. This study uses secondary data from Riskesdas for the province of NTB in 2018 obtained from the Health Research and Development Agency (Balitbangkes) of the Indonesian Ministry of Health with an analysis unit for children aged 0-59 months in the province of NTB. Data were analyzed by univariate, bivariate and multivariate with the help of SPSS 25.0 program. Bivariate test using Chi-square test and multivariate test using logistic regression. This study found that children under five in the province of NTB had a normal nutritional status of 71.2%. There were no differences in the nutritional status of the respondents according to the characteristics of the children, either history of illness or gender, there were significant differences in the nutritional status of the respondents according to the mother's education and the number of household members, and there were no differences in the nutritional status of the respondents according to the environment. It is hoped that the NTB provincial government, the NTB Provincial Health Office, the NTB provincial BKKBN, and the local district/city government can synergize with each other in implementing the stunting toddler intervention program, especially for mothers with low and middle education.

Can ‘baby brain’ in pregnancy be explained by social psychology?

Can ‘baby brain’ in pregnancy be explained by social psychology?

Using Books to Talk With Kids About Race and Racism

In light of recent national events, many parents are wondering whether they should talk to their children about race and racism. And, if the answer is yes, how can they do this in a thoughtful and effective manner?The truth is kids are impacted by race at a very early age. As early as 3 months, a baby's brain can notice racial differences in the people around them. By age 2, children soak up stereotypes about race and may express these with fear. By age 4, children can directly express bias regarding race by teasing. By age 8, children are aware of social norms and can express bias in more subtle forms. And, by age 12, many children become set in biased thoughts, actions and decisions.This means that there is nearly a 10-year period where parents may be able to intervene! Parents are the primary sources for children to learn about race and racism. Whether parents choose to talk to their kids about this or not, children will learn from their environments and the other people in their life.What if we told you that parents can use books to not only help start the conversation, but also keep the conversation going?Books are powerful tools that can serve as “mirrors, windows, and maps,

Baby brains need bugs: evaluating the role of early-life microbiota in modulating brain development from c-section mice

Baby brains need bugs: evaluating the role of early-life microbiota in modulating brain development from c-section mice

Artificial Intelligence-based Myelinated White Matter Segmentation for a Pediatric Brain - A Challenging Task

Background: Segmentation of a baby brain,in particular myelinated white matter is a very challenging and important task in medical image analysis, because of the ongoing process of myelination and structural differences present in magnetic resonance images of a baby. Most available algorithms for segmentation of a baby brain are atlas based segmentations, which may not accurate because baby brain Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) are very subjective. Objective: Artificial intelligence based methods for myelinated white matter segmentation. Method: Fuzzy C-means Clustering with Level Set Method (FCMLSM), Adaptively Regularized Kernel-based Fuzzy C-means clustering (ARKFCM), Multiplicative Intrinsic Component Optimization (MICO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Results: Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Edge Preservation Index (EPI), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and Peak Signal to noise Ratio (PSNR) Accuracy, Precision, Dice and Jaccard values are maintained good and Mean squared error (MSE) is less for FCMLSM. Conclusion: FCMLSM is a very suitable method for myelinated white matter segmentation when compared to ARKFCM, MICO and PSO.

Evidence for cognitive plasticity during pregnancy via enhanced learning and memory

ABSTRACT Human and animal neuroscience studies support the view that plastic shifts occur in the brain during pregnancy that support the emergence of new maternal behaviours. The idea of adaptive plasticity in pregnancy is at odds with the notion of “baby brain”, in which pregnant women describe the onset of forgetfulness. While inconsistent evidence for memory deficits during pregnancy has been reported, few studies have investigated spatial associative memory (which is consistently enhanced in studies of pregnant rodents). Moreover, most studies assess domain-general stimuli, which might miss adaptations specific to parent-relevant stimuli. In the present study, we examined the retention of spatial associative memory for parenting-relevant and non-parenting-relevant stimuli across 4-weeks in a sample of women in their third trimester of pregnancy, and compared their performance to a sample of never pregnant women. We demonstrated that relative to never pregnant women, pregnant women exhibited enhanced long-term retention of object-scene-location associations (spatial associative memory), as well as better initial learning about parenting-relevant, relative to non-parenting-relevant, stimuli. Thus, similar to studies in rodents, cognitive improvements were seen during pregnancy in humans, and those improvements were specific to the domain of spatial associative retention, and in the recognition of stimuli relevant to parenting.

Penerapan Pijat Oksitosin dan Marmet untuk Meningkatkan Produksi ASI Ibu Nifas

Breastmilk is needed by babies because of its vitamins that are needed for the growth of the baby's brain which is undergoing rapid development from the age of 0-6 months to the age of 2 years, what if the baby is malnourished then the cells in the baby will shrink to 15% up to 20%, Unfortunately, many postpartum mothers cannot express breast milk properly and smoothly. Breastfeeding is a very closely related interaction between mechanical, nervous, and hormonal stimuli that affect the release of oxytocin. This study aims to determine the effect of oxytocin massage and market technique on breast milk production in postpartum mothers. This research uses a quasi-experimental design, with pre and post-test design. The number of samples was 20 respondents with purposive sampling. Data analysis in this study "Wilcoxon" the results the mean pre and post-test for oxytocin massage were 4.7 with a p-value 0.005 and the Marmet technique had a mean value of 4.5 with a p-value 0.004. In conclusion, oxytocin massage was more effective than the marmet technique on postpartum mother's milk production at the Health Center.

The influence of stress during pregnancy on the central nervous system of mother and her child

Pregnant women may experience high levels of stress, including those associated with finding oneself in a new reality. In addition, the new reality is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has contributed to the deterioration of the mental state of many people. Chronic stress can lead to neuroanatomical changes in the mother, but also in her baby. It leads to atrophy of neurons in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, and to the growth and enlargement of the amygdala, i.e. those structures that are responsible for emotions. The mother's emotions also shape the synapses in the fetus, and the neurotransmitters secreted by the mother modify the development of the baby's brain. Research is ongoing in many countries on the consequences of anxiety and depression in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, it is important to take care of psychological well-being, for example by using the techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy. Support from relatives during pregnancy and childbirth is also an extremely important element in the proper development of the central nervous system of the mother and her child.

The effects of activating a “baby brain” stereotype on pregnant women’s cognitive functioning

AbstractThroughout pregnancy and into the immediate postpartum period, women are generally perceived to be incompetent, stressed, and forgetful. However, the neuropsychological “baby brain” literature remains unclear and contradictory. Across two studies, we provide the first experimental tests of whether perceived cognitive impairment in pregnancy can be explained by stereotype threat theory, which proposes that awareness of negative stereotypes about one’s ingroup can harm performance. In Study 1 (N = 364), we tested stereotype threat effects in a 2 (stereotype threat versus no threat) × 3 (pregnant women versus new mothers versus never‐pregnant female control) design. We observed a main effect of group on memory performance (pregnant women and new mothers performed worse than controls), but no other main or interactive effects. Study 2 (N = 409) aimed to extend these research questions with mathematics ability, memory, and attention as the dependent variables. Again, we found that a stereotype threat manipulation did not impair pregnant women and new mothers’ cognitive performance, nor was there any interactive effects. Groups also did not differ in their performance. We discuss these results in the context of stereotype threat mechanisms, calling into question whether a stereotype threat paradigm can be applied effectively to pregnancy‐related stereotypes. This work has implications for the advancement of stereotype threat as a theory and contributes to the reappraisal of the utility of stereotype threat as a way of understanding how stereotypes affect performance.

Clinical features of the TORCH syndrome in newborns with congenital cytomegalovirus infection depending on birth body weight

Objective: to study the clinical features of TORCH syndrome in newborns with congenital cytomegalovirus infection depending on body weight at birthCharacteristics of children and research methods. The study included 70 patients (43 premature, 27 full-term) with with congenital acute cytomegalovirus infection, manifested form. Patient characteristics: Group 1: 21 premature children with extremely and very low body weight at birth; Group 2: 22 premature children with very low body weight; Group 3: 27 full-term children with body weight more than 2,500 g. The congenital cytomegalovirus infection was diagnosed on the presence of TORCH syndrome and etiological verification in the first 3 weeks of life.Results. The authors found that children with extremely and very low body weight significantly more often (p<0.05) had hydrocephalus and interstitial pneumonia than children with low body weight. The full-term patients weighing more than 2,500 g suffered from hemolytic anemia, brain calcifications and congenital heart defects (p<0.05) statistically significantly more often than preterm patients. Reduced duration of pregnancy in preterm labor contributes to the rare occurrence of hemolytic anemia and calcifications in the brain of premature babies. Periventricular localization of calcifications is characteristic of full-term infants. It is necessary to exclude congenital cytomegalovirus infection in newborns with congenital heart defects and other clinical manifestations of TORCH syndrome.Conclusion. The results of the study can be used to diagnose cytomegalovirus infection in children, depending on the birth weight.

Evidence to Support the Clinical Utility of Prenatal Exome Sequencing in Evaluation of the Fetus with Congenital Anomalies: Scientific Impact Paper No. 64 [February] 2021.

Structural differences (congenital anomalies) in the makeup of the baby's heart, brain and other organs are found on antenatal ultrasound scans in up to 3% of pregnancies. These often have a genetic cause, arising because of changes in the chromosomes (which store our genetic material) or the DNA code that make up the genes. The more differences a baby has the more likely the risk of underlying genetic disease. If a structural difference is found, parents are usually offered a genetic test, which may be carried out on cells taken either from the placenta (chorionic villous sampling) or the fluid surrounding the baby (amniocentesis). At the moment, these cells are only tested for changes in the chromosomes and are only able to reveal the underlying cause in about 40% of unborn babies. Prenatal exome sequencing (ES) is a new genetic test, which, when combined with testing the DNA of both parents can find changes in the baby's genetic code. If a DNA change is found that can explain the structural changes seen on ultrasound, specific information about the underlying diagnosis can be given to the parents. Having this information can help parents make important decisions about their ongoing pregnancy, as well as help doctors to care for the mother and baby. Finding a genetic change can also help to understand how the condition has arisen and whether it might happen again in another pregnancy. It may also be possible to test for the genetic condition in future pregnancies. Although prenatal ES is an exciting new way to improve diagnosis rates for structural differences, it has some challenges. While the test is very detailed, it may not always find a genetic explanation and sometimes the results are difficult to interpret. For example, genetic changes can be found where their significance for the pregnancy is unclear. More recently, two studies have now shown that prenatal ES can find a genetic diagnosis in at least 10% of pregnancies with structural differences where standard chromosome testing has been negative. This paper reviews these studies, along with earlier evidence on ES and provides clinicians with guidance for future practice.

Baby brain activity mapped with non-invasive cap

Breakthrough could provide insights into developmental conditions

Baby brain: Neuroscience, policy-making and child protection

This paper is concerned with the co-opting of neuroscientific findings into social work practice with infants at risk of harm. The value of neuroscience to our understanding of infants and infant care remains contested. For ‘infant mental health’ proponents, neuroscientific findings have become a powerful tool in arguing for the importance of nurture and care in the early years. However, critical perspectives question the selective use of neuroscientific evidence, and the impact that the ‘first three years’ agenda has actually had on families. In social work, much of our involvement with very young children is centred around risk. It is also concentrated on children born into families and communities experiencing multiple disadvantages. The emphasis on the vulnerability of infants and very young children has changed child protection social work in significant ways. Many of the children subject to child care and protection measures are very young, or not yet born. This paper draws upon findings from a study which followed families through the process of pre-birth child protection assessment. It is argued that it is necessary to engage critically with the ‘first three years’ narrative that has become dominant in Scottish policy making and the impact this has had on child protection practice and the lives of families. The paper argues for a broader interpretation of ACEs focused on community and public health across the life course.

Multi-Regression based supervised sample selection for predicting baby connectome evolution trajectory from neonatal timepoint.

The connectional map of the baby brain undergoes dramatic changes over the first year of postnatal development, which makes its mapping a challenging task, let alone learning how to predict its evolution. Currently, learning models for predicting brain connectomic developmental trajectories remain broadly absent despite their great potential in spotting atypical neurodevelopmental disorders early. This is most likely due to the scarcity and often incompleteness of longitudinal infant neuroimaging studies for training such models. In this paper, we propose the first approach for progressively predicting longitudinal development of brain networks during the postnatal period solely from a baseline connectome around birth. To this end, a supervised multi-regression sample selection strategy is designed to learn how to identify the best set of neighbors of a testing baseline connectome to eventually predict its evolution trajectory at follow-up timepoints. However, given that the training dataset may have missing samples (connectomes) at certain timepoints, this may affect the training of the predictive model. To overcome this problem, we perform a low-rank tensor completion based on a robust principal component analysis to impute the missing training connectomes by linearly approximating similar complete training networks. In the prediction step, our sample selection strategy aims to preserve spatiotemporal relationships between consecutive timepoints. Therefore, the proposed method learns how to identify the set of the local closest neighbors to a target network by training an ensemble of bidirectional regressors leveraging temporal dependency between consecutive timepoints with a recall to the baseline observations to progressively predict the evolution of a testing network over time. Our method achieves the best prediction results and better captures the dynamic changes of each brain connectome over time in comparison to its ablated versions using leave-one-out cross-validation strategy.

The impact of parental contact upon cortical noxious-related activity in human neonates.

BackgroundNeonates display strong behavioural, physiological and cortical responses to tissue‐damaging procedures. Parental contact can successfully regulate general behavioural and physiological reactivity of the infant, but it is not known whether it can influence noxious‐related activity in the brain. Brain activity is highly dependent upon maternal presence in animal models, and therefore this could be an important contextual factor in human infant pain‐related brain activity.MethodsGlobal topographic analysis was used to identify the presence and inter‐group differences in noxious‐related activity in three separate parental contexts. EEG was recorded during a clinically required heel lance in three age and sex‐matched groups of neonates (a) while held by a parent in skin‐to‐skin (n = 9), (b) while held by a parent with clothing (n = 9) or (c) not held at all, but in individualized care (n = 9).ResultsThe lance elicited a sequence of 4–5 event‐related potentials (ERPs), including the noxious ERP (nERP), which was smallest for infants held skin‐to‐skin and largest for infants held with clothing (p=0.016). The nERP was then followed by additional and divergent long‐latency ERPs (> 750 ms post‐lance), not previously described, in each of the groups, suggesting the engagement of different higher level cortical processes depending on parental contact.ConclusionsThese results show the importance of considering contextual factors in determining infant brain activity and reveal the powerful influence of parental contact upon noxious‐related activity across the developing human brain.SignificanceThis observational study found that the way in which the neonatal brain processes a noxious stimulus is altered by the type of contact the infant has with their mother. Specifically, being held in skin‐to‐skin reduces the magnitude of noxious‐related cortical activity. This work has also shown that different neural mechanisms are engaged depending on the mother/infant context, suggesting maternal contact can change how a baby's brain processes a noxious stimulus.

Functional dissection of prenatal drug effects on baby brain and behavioral development.

Prenatal drug exposure (PDE) is known to affect fetal brain development with documented long‐term consequences. Most studies of PDE effects on the brain are based on animal models. In this study, based on a large sample of 133 human neonates and leveraging a novel linear mixed‐effect model designed for intersubject variability analyses, we studied the effects of six prenatally exposed drugs (i.e., nicotine, alcohol, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, marijuana, cocaine, and opioids) on neonatal whole‐brain functional organization and compared them with five other critical nondrug variables (i.e., gestational age at birth/scan, sex, birth weight, and maternal depression). The behavioral implications were also examined. Magnitude‐wise, through summing across individual drug effects, our results highlighted ~5% of whole‐brain functional connections (FCs) affected by PDE, which was highly comparable with the combined effects of the five nond rug variables. Spatially, the detected PDE effects featured drug‐specific patterns with a common bias in higher‐order brain regions/networks. Regarding brain–behavioral relationships, the detected connections showing significant drug effects also demonstrated significant correlations with 3‐month behavioral outcomes. Further mediation analyses supported a mediation role of the detected brain FCs between PDE status and cognitive/language outcomes. Our findings of widespread, and spatially biased PDE effect patterns coupled with significant behavioral implications may hopefully stimulate more human‐based studies into effects of PDE on long‐term developmental outcomes.

Genetic polymorphism in IL17RA induces susceptibility to Toxoplasma gondii infection in Brazilian pregnant women

Congenital toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, an obligate intracellular parasite which can cause fetal death/abortion and can induce damage in the brain and eyes of the infected babies. The environmental and genetic factors associated with T. gondii and the maternal immune response, drive part of the pathogenesis of congenital toxoplasmosis. Thus, in this study, we aimed to investigate the allelic and genotypic frequencies of specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the IL17A and IL17RA genes, as well as the production of IL-17A, IL-33, and CCL2 in pregnant women, from the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, further relating these along with the clinical parameters, to the toxoplasmosis infection. Through PCR-RFLP techniques, two SNPs implicated in Th17 immune response, IL17A rs2275913 (G> A) and IL17RA rs4819554 (A> G) modulation were evaluated in pregnant women, either infected or not infected by T. gondii. These women were also evaluated in terms of plasma release of CCL2, IL-33, and IL-17A which relate to hypertension, number of abortions, and ethnic pattern. The results showed that the G-allele of the SNP rs2275913 (IL17A) appeared to be protective in this population, while the rs4819554 (IL17RA) SNP G allele was associated with greater susceptibility to T. gondii infection [ρ value = 0.025; OR = 2.815 (1.118–7.089); CI = 95%]. None of the cytokines had any influence on the analyzed parameters (abortion and hypertension). In conclusion, our data suggest an immunogenic evidence of susceptibility to T. gondii infection driven by the rs4819554 (IL17RA) SNP G allele in Brazilian pregnant women. Further studies are needed to reinforce this trial marker in populations from distinct geographical areas as well as to confirm the protective pattern related to the G-allele of the SNP rs2275913 (IL17A) in pregnant women.

Probing Tissue Microarchitecture of the Baby Brain via Spherical Mean Spectrum Imaging.

During the first years of life, the human brain undergoes dynamic spatially-heterogeneous changes, invo- lving differentiation of neuronal types, dendritic arbori- zation, axonal ingrowth, outgrowth and retraction, synaptogenesis, and myelination. To better quantify these changes, this article presents a method for probing tissue microarchitecture by characterizing water diffusion in a spectrum of length scales, factoring out the effects of intra-voxel orientation heterogeneity. Our method is based on the spherical means of the diffusion signal, computed over gradient directions for a set of diffusion weightings (i.e., b -values). We decompose the spherical mean profile at each voxel into a spherical mean spectrum (SMS), which essentially encodes the fractions of spin packets undergoing fine- to coarse-scale diffusion proce- sses, characterizing restricted and hindered diffusion stemming respectively from intra- and extra-cellular water compartments. From the SMS, multiple orientation distribution invariant indices can be computed, allowing for example the quantification of neurite density, microscopic fractional anisotropy ( μ FA), per-axon axial/radial diffusivity, and free/restricted isotropic diffusivity. We show that these indices can be computed for the developing brain for greater sensitivity and specificity to development related changes in tissue microstructure. Also, we demonstrate that our method, called spherical mean spectrum imaging (SMSI), is fast, accurate, and can overcome the biases associated with other state-of-the-art microstructure models.