Field Study/Trial

Sean Deoni of Brown University in the U.S. will evaluate whether mapping myelination in the infant brain can predict their subsequent levels of cognitive ability such as language and motor functioning, which emerge later in childhood. Myelin is a lipid that is deposited around neuronal axons during development. Twenty-four infants between four and six months old will be recruited to a controlled pilot study.

Judith Mercer of the University of Rhode Island in the U.S. will conduct a randomized study to test whether delaying umbilical cord cutting after birth by as little as five minutes allows the placenta to transfer iron-rich blood cells to the newborn, reducing iron deficiency and anemia in the first year of life and promoting myelination of the brain to aid neurodevelopment.

Stephen Freedman of The Hospital for Sick Children in Canada will evaluate whether treating children who have gastroenteritis with the anti-nausea and anti-vomiting medication ondansetron could help them better tolerate oral rehydration therapy. Evaluating this treatment in children hospitalized in Pakistan could lead to ways to help children survive potentially deadly infectious episodes when there is no access to intravenous rehydration.

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.

Beth Smith from the University of Southern California in the U.S. will determine whether monitoring the arm movements of infants can be used to as a non-invasive proxy for neural development to help identify defects and aid treatment. They will perform a longitudinal study of 45 children, including preterm infants, who will be assessed monthly from one to six months of age. Motion sensory equipment will measure the type and quality of their arm movements, which will be correlated with cortical brain activity measured via electroencephalography (EEG).

Silvia Rigato and Karla Holmboe of the University of Essex in the United Kingdom will track the development of attention and social skills in infants over time to enable the early identification of children with impairments. They will recruit 60 infants and analyze attention skills such as alertness monitored by heart rate, and social skills such as face perception monitored by eye tracking, from the last trimester of pregnancy through to 10 months old.

Sean Deoni of Brown University in the U.S. will evaluate whether mapping myelination in the infant brain can predict their subsequent levels of cognitive ability such as language and motor functioning, which emerge later in childhood. Myelin is a lipid that is deposited around neuronal axons during development. Twenty-four infants between four and six months old will be recruited to a controlled pilot study.

Farrah Mateen of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will measure the thickness of the retina in children from Zimbabwe over the first five years of life using a handheld optical coherence tomography device to determine whether they can identify abnormal brain development in low-income settings. Optical coherence tomography is noninvasive and should be easy for community health workers to use. They will recruit 300 children and correlate retinal layer thicknesses with parameters including weight, height, and gestational age at birth, as well as HIV status.

Marilyn Nations from the University of Fortaleza in Brazil will evaluate a program established in 1990 at a public hospital in Fortaleza that was designed to increase bonding between fathers and their newborns and thereby improve overall health, as well as reducing crime rates. Fortaleza has a high crime rate mostly linked to low socioeconomic class males.

Vinod Bhutani of Stanford University in the U.S. will measure neurosteroid levels in infants from birth to 72 hours of age to determine whether they are affected by skin-to-skin contact (kangaroo mother care), thereby influencing neurodevelopment. Skin-to-skin contact between mother and child shortly after birth has been linked with improved infant growth, breastfeeding and attachment, and, for preterm infants, enhanced neurodevelopment.