_6e98296023b34dfabc133638c1ef5d32-620x480.jpg "Advances in organoids could transform the treatment of spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries")
Summary: A new study reveals that the social perception of the brain, a network that processes the face, look and speech, is already active at birth or shortly after. Using advanced image data, researchers showed that newborns exhibit robust connectivity in regions responsible for visual and social processing.
Babies with a stronger early connectivity paid greater attention to the faces at four months and showed less social difficulties in 18 months. The discovery sheds light on the neuronal roots of social behavior and could inform the early detection of autistic spectrum disorder.
Key facts:
Early activation: The social perception network of the brain is active within the weeks after birth. PREDICTIVE CONNECTIVITY: The strongest newborn brain connectivity predicts better facial attention and social results. Author information: The results could help identify early markers for social difficulties linked to autism.
Source: Yale
Paying less attention to faces is one of the key markers of autistic spectrum disorder. But while researchers have begun to discover the brain network that supports the processing of social stimuli such as faces, looks and speech, little is known about how and when it begins to develop.
In a new study, Yale researchers have now discovered that this network is already quite active at birth or shortly after, a finding that provides information on brain processes that underlie social behaviors later in life.
The study was recently published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science.
The researchers suspected that this route, known as the route of social perception, is very early in development.
“The newborns are already showing preference for faces and the look,” says Katarzyna Chawarska, PhD, Emily Fraser Beede Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale Medicine Faculty (YSM) and co-senior author of the study.
First, the researchers used data from the Connectome Human development project, a study funded by the European Research Council that collects brain images, clinical and behavioral data, and genetic information of children up to 10 months of age.
Using the project’s magnetic resonance imaging data, the researchers evaluated functional connectivity in the areas of the brain that constitute the social perception route, which includes regions dedicated to vision processing and an area called superior temporal groove that specializes in faces processing, speech and information on the look.
“We discovered that connectivity within this network was already quite robust within a couple of weeks after birth,” says Principal Author Dustin Scheinost, PhD, associate director of Biomedical Image Technologies at the Yale Biomedical Image Institute.
The finding suggests that some of the social preferences observed in babies from the beginning could depend on this route, explains Chawarska.
Brain connectivity is linked to facial attention
Then, the researchers did a similar analysis with children who had a family member with autistic spectrum disorder, which increases their probability of developing social difficulties. Within this group, the road also seemed to be interconnected at birth, as the researchers had observed in the participants of the human connectoma project.
While they followed this second group of children over time, the researchers found that the children who showed a stronger connectivity in the social perception route shortly after birth paid more attention to the faces when they were 4 months. In addition, greater attention to faces at 4 months was associated with less social difficulties at 18 months of age.
“This suggests that cortical brain processes that lend place to social care are probably at stake shortly after birth and feel the basis for the development of social commitment skills,” says Chawarska.
The research team, an interdisciplinary collaboration that included several researchers at the Center for Children’s Studies, the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Image in YSM, as well as the Department of Statistics and Data Science at the Yale Arts and Sciences Faculty, is being divided even more in this area. They are currently looking for additional attention measures and following a larger group of children over time.
“This work will help us understand more about brain processes that drive social attention in typical development and that can be involved in the social vulnerabilities we know are associated with autism,” says Chawarska.
Key questions answered:
A: The researchers discovered that it is already active within weeks after birth.
A: Record how brain processes face, speech and look: key elements of social behavior.
A: Babies with a stronger early connectivity in this route showed better attention to faces and less social difficulties later, suggesting that the first forms of brain wiring are social development.
On this research news of social neuroscience and neurodevelopment
Author: Mallory Locklear
Source: Yale
Contact: Mallory Locklear – Yale
Image: The image is accredited to Neuroscience News
Original research: open access.
“Functional connectivity in the way of social perception at birth is linked to the attention to faces at 4 months” by Katarzyna Chawarska et al. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science
Abstract
Functional connectivity in the social perception route is linked to the attention to faces at 4 months
Background
The right lateralized social perception, including the upper temporal groove, admits the processing of dynamic and multimodal signals, while the right lateralized ventral pathway, including the fusiform turn, is involved in the processing of static facial characteristics. However, little is known about the early development of these roads or their links with subsequent social results.
This study examined intrinsic functional connectivity (IFC) on these pathways in neurotypical neonates and those with a family risk of autism. We also investigate whether the IFC Neonatal was associated with a reduced care at 4 months, an early autism biomarker.
Methods
The IFC was measured in 310 developing neonates, typically in development of the Connectome Human (DHCP) project in development at 41 weeks of post -manstrual age (PMA; SD = 1.7), and in 73 newborns Yal at all times with and without family history of autism at 44 weeks PMA (SD = 1.3). The attention to the faces was evaluated at 4.1 months (De = 0.3) through ocular monitoring in 37 YALE participants.
Results
The four ways showed significant IFC (P < 0.001), with no sex differences (p > 0.159). Connectivity in social roads increased with age (p <0.001). In Yale's neonates, IFC only in the correct social route was positively associated with the attention to the faces at 4 months (R (37) = 0.456, p = 0.006). Greater attention to faces predicted less social concerns at 18 months (R (33) = –0.358, p = 0.010).
Conclusions
The right lateralized social perception represents an area of interest to identify early neuronal markers of social vulnerabilities associated with autism.
