Dr Kaufman's research aims give parents a
better understanding of the mental world
of their baby
Image: iStockphoto
Sitting on her mother’s lap with a tiny, Velcro-covered mitten covering her 11-week-old hand, Molly reaches for an object that is similarly covered in Velcro. It’s a simple move that defies what other babies her age typically do, which is how young Molly is helping researchers better understand developing brain activity.
As a ‘baby scientist’ Molly is helping researchers at Swinburne University of Technology’s Brain Science Institute learn more about a process called mirror neuron activity – where the brain mirrors the activity of another person, activating a neuron response, even though no physical movement occurs.
Leading the work is Dr Jordy Kaufman, who moved to Melbourne from the University of London, Birkbeck, to establish the Swinburne Baby Laboratory in early 2008.
Dr Kaufman says Molly’s involvement in the lab’s ‘Sticky Mittens’ project is allowing researchers to explore brain development. “At three months old babies are not good at reaching for things, but with practice they can do something like it. It may look like they are just swiping or swatting at things, but they are trying to get the toy.”
Previous US-led research has shown that babies with ‘sticky mitten’ experience take more of these bold, directive actions – that is, they grab at objects more than other babies.
Sticky mitten research began about a decade ago with Professor Amy Needham, who supervised Dr Kaufman’s PhD in her previous role at Duke University.
Now at the Department of Psychology and Human Development at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, Professor Needham says these types of projects help to build an understanding of infant motor skill development and the changes behind it. “Development is a complex phenomenon and we are only now starting to understand the many ways in which different processes influence each other as development takes place,” she says.
Perhaps most importantly for those who are exploring brain development, is that babies with a sticky mitten experience also watch the actions of others more closely. And by carefully watching the actions of others, there is the possibility of enhanced brain development, allowing infants to better interpret other people’s actions.
Swinburne’s Dr Kaufman says his sticky mitten research will monitor this. “We want to know if giving babies a sticky mitten experience leads them to show more mirror neuron activity than those without.”
To answer this question, Dr Kaufman is studying the brain waves of two sets of babies: those like Molly who have sticky mitten experience and those without. In both cases babies watch their parent grab for an object while their brain waves are monitored. “We are essentially finding out more about the mind’s building blocks.”
The Swinburne Baby Laboratory monitors these brain waves using a non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG). It works in much the same way as a thermometer measures temperature. A net of 128 sensors is placed over a baby’s head to measure naturally occurring brain activity. The sensors capture the electrical signals coming from the brain while the baby watches objects or listens to sounds. Dr Kaufman says it is a completely safe experience for the babies involved and usually lasts between two and 15 minutes.
The work could also have commercial ramifications. Dr Andy Bremner, a former colleague of Dr Kaufman’s from the University of London, Goldsmiths, says that because sticky mitten research may help to explain how active exploratory experiences drive development, it could provide toy manufacturers with evidence that certain educational products are beneficial. “Currently there is little evidence basis for any benefit of such toys, but this research could help to provide this.”
That aside, Dr Kaufman says what drives the Swinburne Baby Laboratory is the ability to provide insight into the minds of infants and young children. Its work has important ramifications for learning about the development of autism and schizophrenia. “Understanding how these conditions develop could lead to more sensitive diagnostic measures, and therefore earlier intervention.”
One way of doing this is to measure how babies’ brains react to changes in sound, a perceptual process called ‘change detection’, which forms the basis of another Swinburne Baby Laboratory project. “Basically this means we play some sounds and then change it and see what their brain waves do.
“We know how adults’ brains respond to auditory change – even in our sleep our brains are aware of any changes in noise – but do babies respond?”
Finding out if babies do respond to auditory change could lead to a better understanding of how autism and schizophrenia develop. For example, people with schizophrenia do not show the same level of change detection as those without it; and some people with autism are highly sensitive to auditory change.
“So by monitoring how the brain develops we might gain more insight into this,” Dr Kaufman says. “The more we know about the typically developing brain, the more scientists can discover markers for atypical development, perhaps leading to early diagnostic tests and early interventions to minimise the negative effects of atypical brain development.”
Lab delves into our infancy
The Swinburne Baby Laboratory is Australia’s first cognitive neuroscience facility for babies and infants.
It was established in early 2008 by Dr Jordy Kaufman, who became interested in studying brain development when he undertook a cognitive science degree at Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD at Duke University with Professor Amy Needham. His interest then led him to the UK to work with Professor Mark Johnson at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at the University of London, Birkbeck.
He wants to find out how the mental world of infants differs from that of adults.
“We are more infantile than we think,” he says. “Only 10 to 15 per cent of things we do now are different from what we did then. Yet, the relationship between brain development and cognitive development in babies is largely unknown.”
What drives Dr Kaufman is the desire to give scientists and parents alike a window into this world from which we have all grown. “Almost all parents at some point wonder what it is that their baby can see, hear, feel, remember and understand. The Swinburne Baby Laboratory was created to help answer these questions,” he says.
A story provided by Swinburne Magazine. This article is under copyright; permission must be sought from Swinburne Magazine to reproduce it.
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