Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

Roy Head of Development Media International in the United Kingdom will promote maternal and child health in Burkina Faso by producing short entertaining films on health-related topics in the local language for viewing on mobile phones. The films will each deliver a specific message, such as the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, hand washing, and early recognition of diseases. They will record the films onto mobile phone memory cards that they will distribute within chosen communities to promote widespread peer-to-peer distribution.

Yan Zhu of the University of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in China will build a system based on electroencephalography to monitor the activity of the fetal brain in utero. Due to technical and practical limitations, current methods for measuring brain activity are limited to newborns. However, analyzing development of the fetal brain would reveal new insight into very early stages of neurodevelopment, and could lead to improved treatments for certain disorders.

Jamie Edgin of the University of Arizona in the U.S. will determine whether the quality of sleep in infants can predict the level of specific brain functions such as language and cognition later in childhood. They will perform a study of 6 to 24 month old infants, both healthy and with neurological disorders associated with disrupted sleep. Sleep quality will be measured every three months over the course of a year using a small movement detector attached to the infant's leg, and from parent surveys.

Kumanan Wilson of Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada is developing an algorithm to estimate gestational age using specific metabolic analytes found in blood spots collected routinely from newborns in many countries. Knowing the precise age of infants is important for evaluating development particularly of brain function. It is currently measured by ultrasound, which requires expertise and expensive equipment, and is not available in many countries.

Laura Ment of Yale University School of Medicine in the U.S. will use magnetic resonance imaging to identify functional connectivity defects underlying language development in the brains of preterm infants, and find the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms involved. Preterm births are common worldwide, and lead to long-term disabilities, particularly in language development. By identifying the underlying cerebral connectivity defects and the molecular factors involved, they hope to use them as diagnostics and as aids for monitoring the effect of treatments.

Hans Super of Braingaze in Spain will develop a low-cost application for smart phones that can measure eye vergence, which is when the two eyes align on one object, as a potential proxy for cognitive development in infants. They will generate software that presents visual images, and incorporate an eye tracking system that records eye position binocularly. The application will be tested on 10 infants between 6 and 24 months old, followed by cognitive performance tests to associate changes in eye vergence with brain development.

Yoshio Okada of Boston Children's Hospital in the U.S. will develop a non-invasive technique to measure the brain activity of fetuses in pregnant women in order to detect abnormalities. Current methods suffer from noise contamination and lack of sensitivity. Their new method involves a dual array of magnetic sensors placed around the entire torso of the mother and will be evaluated for its ability to discriminate fetal brain signals from noise.

Philip Baker from the University of Aukland in New Zealand will determine whether the presence of specific metabolites in a mother's hair during pregnancy can be used as an early marker of defective neurodevelopment in the child. Early diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism could lead to better treatment. Because hair stably incorporates chemical compounds, they will use samples of maternal hair from a previous study to search for metabolic markers such as fatty acids and amino acids that may correlate with subsequent developmental defects in the infants.

Alexander Drobyshevsky of Northshore University HealthSystem in the U.S. will test whether olfactory learning in newborns can predict cognitive learning and behavior later in childhood. Current tests of learning and memory can only be performed in infants from 4 months old. However, if defects are identified earlier, treatment may be more effective. Olfaction is one of the earliest developed senses and plays an important role in the first days of life.

Mark Blumberg from the University of Iowa in the U.S. will develop a method to record and analyze twitching during infant sleep as a non-invasive measure of early brain development. Muscle twitching during REM sleep is known to reflect nervous system function. They hypothesize that it also shapes the developing brain, and could be used to diagnose future neurodevelopmental disorders.