(Press-News.org) Full-term babies are born with a key collection of networks already formed in their brains, according to new research that challenges some previous theories about the brain's activity and how the brain develops. The study is published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers led by a team from the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London used functional MRI scanning to look at 'resting state' networks in the brains of 70 babies, born at between 29 and 43 weeks of development, who were receiving treatment at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Resting state networks are connected systems of neurons in the brain that are constantly active, even when a person is not focusing on a particular task, or during sleep. The researchers found that these networks were at an adult-equivalent level by the time the babies reached the normal time of birth.
One particular resting state network identified in the babies, called the default mode network, has been thought to be involved in introspection and daydreaming. MRI scans have shown that the default mode network is highly active if a person is not carrying out a defined task, but is much less active while consciously performing tasks.
Earlier research had suggested that the default mode network was not properly formed in babies and that it developed during early childhood. The fact that the default mode network has been found fully formed in newborns means it may provide the foundation for conscious introspection, but it cannot be only thing involved, say the researchers behind today's study.
Professor David Edwards, lead author of the study from the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London, said: "Some researchers have said that the default mode network is responsible for introspection - retrieving autobiographical memories and envisioning the future, etc. The fact that we found it in newborn babies suggests that either being a fetus is a lot more fun than any of us can remember - lying there happily introspecting and thinking about the future - or that this theory is mistaken.
"Our study shows that babies' brains are more fully formed than we thought. More generally, we sometimes expect to be able to explain the activity we can see on brain scans terms of someone thinking or doing some task. However, most of the brain is probably engaged in activities of which we are completely unaware, and it is this complex background activity that we are detecting."
The researchers found that the resting state networks mainly develop after 30 weeks – in the third trimester - and are largely complete by 40 weeks when most babies are born. They reached their conclusions after carrying out functional MRI scans on 70 babies, born at between 29 and 43 weeks of development, who were receiving treatment at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and whose parents had given consent for them to be involved in the study. Some of the babies scanned were under sedation and others were not, but the researchers found no difference in results between sedated and non-sedated babies.
The researchers used a 4-dimensional brain atlas developed with scientists in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London to map the activity that they found in the babies' brains against what is known about the location of different brain networks.
The next step for this research is to find out how these networks are affected by illnesses and to see if they can be used to diagnose problems.
INFORMATION:
Today's research involved collaboration between researchers at Imperial College London and clinicians at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, as part of the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), a unique kind of partnership between the College and the Trust, formed in October 2007. The AHSC's aim is to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
The study was carried out by researchers from Imperial College London and University College London, who are funded by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Garfield Weston Foundation.
Study of babies' brain scans sheds new light on the brain's unconscious activity and how it develops
2010-11-02
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Arthritis drugs could help prevent memory loss after surgery
2010-11-02
Anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis may also help prevent cognitive decline after surgery, according to a new study led by researchers at UCSF and colleagues at Imperial College, London.
The research explains for the first time why many patients experience memory loss or other forms of cognitive dysfunction after surgery or critical illness, a process the researchers traced to a specific inflammatory response in the brain.
The findings could lead directly to human clinical trials in as short as 12 months, the authors ...
Peptide being tested to treat atherosclerosis inhibits ovarian cancer growth
2010-11-02
A drug in testing to treat atherosclerosis significantly inhibited growth of ovarian cancer in both human cell lines and mouse models, the first such report of a peptide being used to fight malignancies, according to a study by researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The study follows previous discovery by the same group showing that a protein called apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) in patients may be used as a biomarker to diagnose early stage ovarian cancer, when it typically is asymptomatic and is much easier to treat. These earlier findings could be ...
Earth's first great predator wasn't
2010-11-02
Boulder, CO, USA - The meters-long, carnivorous "shrimp" from hell that once ruled the seas of Earth a half billion years ago may have been a real softy, it turns out. A new 3-D modeling of the mouth parts of the Anomalocaris, along with evidence that these parts were not hard like teeth, but flexible, shows that the famed predator could not have been munching on the hard shells of trilobites and other such creatures of the early seas.
What's more, there is no evidence from fossilized stomach contents or feces that Anomalocaris' ate anything hard enough to leave a fossilized ...
How lead gets into urban vegetable gardens
2010-11-02
Boulder, CO, USA - One common mitigation approach is to build a raised bed and fill it with freshly composted, low-lead soil from elsewhere, right? Maybe not, according to researchers studying the mysterious case of the lead contamination found within raised beds in community gardens in the Boston communities of Roxbury and Dorchester.
"Raised beds are surrounded by a sea of contaminated soil," said Daniel Brabander of Wellesley College. Brabander, his students and colleagues have been studying the lead in 144 backyard gardens in coordination with The Food Project, an ...
Morrison Natural History Museum discovers baby sauropod tracks
2010-11-02
Morrison, CO, USA–Staff at the Morrison Natural History Museum have again discovered infant dinosaur footprints in the foothills west of Denver, Colorado, near the town of Morrison. Dating from the Late Jurassic, some 148 million years ago, these tracks were made before the Rocky Mountains rose, when Morrison was a broad savanna full of dinosaurs.
The fossil tracks represent infant sauropods, according to discoverer Matthew Mossbrucker, the museum's director. Sauropods are giant, herbivorous long-necked dinosaurs, sometimes known as "brontosaurs." The sauropod Apatosaurus ...
Scarcity of new energy minerals will trigger trade wars
2010-11-02
Boulder, CO, USA - It's not hard to argue in favor of alternatives to fossil fuels these days, but one popular argument – domestic energy security – may be standing on very shaky legs. A lot of rare metals are needed to make photovoltaic panels, rare earth magnets for wind generators, fuel cells and high-capacity batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. But most industrialized nations, including the United States, are almost entirely dependent on foreign sources for those metals. The only way this is going to change is if there is more domestic exploration and mining. ...
UC research: Rabbit's food brings luck in decreasing estrogen levels in wastewater
2010-11-02
The November 2010 issue of "Environmental Pollution" details successful experiments at the University of Cincinnati wherein rabbit's food resulted in the abiotic (non-biological) transformation and absorption of four different types of estrogen, reducing the levels of these estrogen hormones by more than 80 percent in wastewater.
The research has practical implications since it could point to inexpensive treatment technologies and materials for reducing estrogens in wastewater.
Currently, estrogen in wastewater represents a major conduit for the entry of the hormone, ...
Antibiotics have long-term impacts on gut flora
2010-11-02
Short courses of antibiotics can leave normal gut bacteria harbouring antibiotic resistance genes for up to two years after treatment, say scientists writing in the latest issue of Microbiology, published on 3 November.
The researchers believe that this reservoir increases the chances of resistance genes being surrendered to pathogenic bacteria, aiding their survival and suggesting that the long-term effects of antibiotic therapy are more significant than previously thought.
Antibiotics that are prescribed to treat pathogenic bacteria also have an impact on the normal ...
Childhood stroke study identifies the contraceptive pill and smoking as risk factors
2010-11-02
Researchers are calling for clear guidelines on childhood stroke after a study, published in the November issue of Acta Paediatrica, found wide variations in time lag to diagnosis, investigation and treatment.
They are also keen to see the development of appropriate rehabilitation services, after a follow-up study found that 85% of the children who survived a stroke had neurological dysfunction or limitations.
Dr Sten Christerson studied the records of all children who had experienced their first stroke over a seven-year period in the Uppsala-Orebro Health Care Region, ...
Arthritis drugs could help prevent memory loss after surgery, study suggests
2010-11-02
Anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis may also help prevent cognitive problems after surgery, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College London and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The research also reveals for the first time that a specific inflammatory response in the brain may explain why many patients experience memory loss or other forms of cognitive dysfunction after surgery or critical illness.
The findings, from research in mouse models, could lead to human clinical trials within ...