Exposure to stress early in life permanently shapes activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis and the brain. Prenatally, glucocorticoids pass through the placenta to the fetus with postnatal impacts on brain development, birth weight (BW), and HPA axis functioning. Little is known about the biological mechanisms by which…

How does the brain's response to speech change over the first months of life? Although behavioral findings indicate that neonates' listening biases are sharpened over the first months of life, with a species-specific preference for speech emerging by 3 months, the neural substrates underlying this developmental change are unknown. We…

Habituation--the most basic form of learning--is used to evaluate central nervous system (CNS) maturation and to detect abnormalities in fetal brain development. In the current study, habituation, stimulus specificity and dishabituation of auditory evoked responses were measured in fetuses and newborns using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). An…

Aim: To explore whether active head lifting from supine (AHLS) in early infancy is associated with cognitive outcome in the second year of life. Method: The presence of AHLS was always recorded in the notes of infants admitted to our tertiary neonatal intensive care unit. Random sampling was used to pair infants with AHLS with two comparison…

As thinking adults depend upon years of practical experience, reasoning about facts and causes, and language to sustain their knowledge, beliefs and memories, and to understand one another, it seems quite absurd to suggest that a newborn infant has intersubjective mental capacities. But detailed research on how neonatal selves coordinate the…

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) can be effectively used to record fetal and neonatal cognitive abilities/functions by recording completely non-invasively the magnetic fields produced by the active neurons in the brain. During the last trimester and the first months of life, the cognitive capabilities related to emotion recognition and language…

Auditory brainstem evoked responses (ABRs) were compared in 15 newborns with Down syndrome and 15 sex-, age-, and weight-matched control newborns. Participants had normal ABRs based upon values specific to 32- to 42-weeks postconceptional age. Although Wave III and Wave V component latencies and the Wave I-III interpeak latency (IPL) were shorter…

Genetic factors dynamically interact with both pre- and postnatal environmental influences to shape development. Considerable attention has been devoted to gene-environment interactions (G x E) on important outcomes (A. Caspi & T. E. Moffitt, 2006). It is also important to consider the possibility that these G x E effects may vary across…

In the human brain, the morphology of cortical gyri and sulci is complex and variable among individuals, and it may reflect pathological functioning with specific abnormalities observed in certain developmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Since cortical folding occurs early during brain development, these structural abnormalities might be…

In the adult human brain, the presence of a system matching the observation and the execution of actions is well established. This mechanism is thought to rely primarily on the contribution of so-called "mirror neurons", cells that are active when a specific gesture is executed as well as when it is seen or heard. Despite the wealth of evidence…

The functional maturity of the newborn infant's brain, the resemblances between neonatal imitation and imitation in adults and the possibly lateralized neonatal imitation suggest that the mirror neuron system may contribute to neonatal imitation. Newborn infants not only imitate but also initiate previously imitated gestures, and are able to…

Neonatal assessments should provide valid estimates of behavior and neurological status, reflect recovery from acute effects, predict subsequent outcome, and point to specific intervention strategies for any problems noted. The authors report relations among measures designed to evaluate early behavioral capabilities and dysfunctions in areas…