The development of the premature brain is improved by supporting the emotional connection with the parents
A joint study by the University of Helsinki and Columbia University showed that supporting the emotional connection between a mother and her premature baby after birth in hospital intensive care improves the baby’s brain development.
Columbia University professors Martha G. Welch and Michael M. Myers had previously found that supporting emotional bonding between mother and baby during neonatal intensive care significantly improved later neurobehavioral development.
In the current study, the brain network functions of preterm infants were measured at prematurity after approximately 6 weeks of Family Nurture Intervention (FNI) treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit. All babies received standard high-level preterm care, but some families were given additional FNI to strengthen the emotional bond between mother and child.
The study shows that such parental support during intensive care eliminated the developmental disorders of brain function typically seen in premature infants. The activity of the brain network of premature babies in the treatment group did not differ from their normal age-born comparison peers.
– Treatment of premature babies in the intensive care unit has improved enormously, but supporting brain development is still a global challenge. Along with treatment innovations, better methods are needed to measure how new treatments directly affect the developing child’s brain,” says the professor. Sampsa Old Housewho led the study.
New research methods facilitate treatment innovations by measuring the direct brain effect of new treatments
“New methods for analyzing the brain activity of babies showed that FNI affected the development of the baby’s brain networks in such a way that they corresponded closely to those of the full-term control group in terms of age. And most importantly, we found that these changes are also associated with better neurocognitive development at 18 months of age,” says the PhD who performed the computational analyzes researcher Pauliina Yrjölä.
“The current study also shows how important it is to combine long-term technical research and development with the innovative development of clinical treatments. In Helsinki, pioneering neuroscience work has been carried out for two decades to improve the assessment of brain function in infants, while in New York exceptionally interesting non-pharmacological research has been carried out on the treatment of premature babies. The results open up many perspectives both in the field of neuroscience research and clinical treatment,” says Dr. Anton Tokarievwho was responsible for technical development.
In recent years, several studies have introduced different approaches to “enrich” the baby’s environment in neonatal intensive care using specific sensory stimuli such as music, massage, or skin-to-skin contact. A new study conducted now emphasizes the importance of natural, live interaction between parent and child. Research shows that supporting the emotional bond between mother and baby leads to direct improvements in brain functional networks that are the basis of lifelong neurocognitive performance.
“From a global perspective, the new findings are particularly interesting, because this kind of treatment development enables intervention to be accessible to everyone, regardless of the resources of the health care system or the individual patient,” Professor Vanhatalo states.
Original article: Pauliina Yrjölä, Michael M. Myers, Martha G. Welch, Nathan J. Stevenson, Anton Tokariev, Sampsa Vanhatalo. Facilitating early parent-child emotional connection improves cortical networks in premature infants. Science Translational Medicine. 14, eabq4786 (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq4786.