Neurodevelopmental Research Program
For Families
The Care Project: Helping Pregnant Moms and Babies - NOW RECRUITING PARTICIPANTS!
FOR PREGNANT WOMEN in the Metro Denver Area.... Do you feel overwhelmed?...sad?...low energy?...stressed?...no pleasure? The Care Project is a research study that offers women the possibility of free interpersonal psychotherapy to help manage stress, build better relationships and social support during pregnancy. Transportation and childcare are provided for all therapy and research appointments. If you are interested in learning more, please call 719-695-2284, or email [email protected], or visit https://www.facebook.com/careprojectDU/
General Study Updates
Recent Findings
Does Shape or Size Matter?
Research has found that larger brains are associated with greater intelligence. However, much of the evidence for the "bigger is better" theory was obtained through studies in which only adults were the subjects. Therefore, we wanted to see if the "bigger is better" hypothesis applies to typically developing preadolescents and if it applies to a specific area of the brain, the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia is a structure in the middle of the brain that is thought to be responsible for sensory and motor coordination and automatic movements.
Our study included 50 children between 6-10 years of age. The children had brain scans with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to determine the shape and size of different brain structures. Children also took tests of intelligence, memory, motor skills and problem solving. Different methods were used to determine the associations between cognitive performance and shape and size of the brain. We found that shape, or formation of the basal ganglia, not size, were associated with cognitive performance in preadolescents! "Bulges" in specific areas of the basal ganglia were associated with poorer performance. (1)
Happiness and Your Baby
Few studies have investigated the relation between maternal happiness during pregnancy, birth outcomes, and child development. We measured varying degrees of happiness experienced by mothers while they were pregnant. We found that women who were happier during pregnancy were less likely to have a preterm birth. We also found that toddlers with advanced cognitive development at two years of age were more likely to have happy mothers. These findings are not surprising but are unique because most research focuses on stress, anxiety and depression during pregnancy. These results are among the first to find that a mother's happiness during pregnancy has a positive influence on the development of her baby.
Development of Boys and Girls
Did you know that you are more likely to have a baby boy than a baby girl? In developed countries like the United States, there are more baby boys born each year than there are baby girls (Mathews et al., 2005). However, environmental influences on a population can change this ratio. In fact, if a population experiences hardship (such as starvation), it results in the births of more girls than boys (Song, 2012). Experiences during pregnancy also affect boy and girl babies differently. For example, we found that baby boys were more physically mature at birth if their mothers had lower levels of the hormone cortisol early in pregnancy. Baby girls were not affected by these early hormone levels, rather, they were more physically mature if their mothers had higher levels of cortisol later in pregnancy (Ellman et al., 2008). Prenatal experiences also influence boys and girls differently when it comes to their temperament and levels of childhood anxiety. We found that mothers who had lower levels of cortisol late in pregnancy had baby girls with less fearful temperament at 2 months of age, and less anxiety at 6-9 years of age (Davis et al., 2007; Davis et al., 2012). Temperament and anxiety were not associated with cortisol exposure for boys. These findings suggest that lower levels of cortisol late in pregnancy may be protective for the emotional development of girls, but not for boys.
Children's Brain Development
Figure 1 demonstrates that female children who were born later have higher assessment scores at 6-10 years of age. This associated between gestational age and assessment score was not seen in male children.
Additionally, we looked at how length of gestation might affect the amount of gray matter in the brain. Figure 2 shows that longer gestation was also associated with more gray matter in certain parts of the brain (these parts are highlighted in yellow, orange, and red). Again, the effect was stronger for females than males, suggesting that female children's brain development benefits greatly from longer gestation, while brain development in males does not seem to be as highly influence by length of gestation. In short, longer gestation is better, especially for girls!
Fetal Development
As you can see in Figure 1, older fetuses produced a larger heart rate response to this experience than younger fetuses. This is evidence that these older fetuses are more mature because they can hear and process this information.
Interestingly, levels of placental CRH also had an important influence on the development of the fetus. By the start of the 3rd trimester, fetuses that experienced lower levels of placental CRH were already producing a heart rate response to the auditory stimulus. In contrast, fetuses exposed to high levels of placental CRH did not show this response until later in the 3rd trimester. This study was recently published in the Journal of Developmental Neuroscience.