Early Family Experiences and Neural Activity in Rural Pakistani Children: The Differential Role of Gender.

Adversity within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) poses severe threats to neurocognitive development, which can be partially mitigated by high-quality early family experiences. Specifically, maternal scaffolding and home stimulation can buffer cognitive development in LMIC, possibly by protecting underlying neural functioning. However, the association between family experiences and neural activity remains largely unexplored in LMIC contexts. This study explored the relation of early family experiences to later cognitive skills and absolute gamma power (21-45 Hz), a neural marker linked to higher-order cognitive skills. Drawing data from the PEDS trial, a longitudinal study in rural Pakistan, we examined maternal scaffolding at 24 months and home stimulation quality at 18 months as predictors of verbal IQ, executive functions, and absolute gamma at 48 months for 105 mother-child dyads (52 girls). Maternal scaffolding interacted with gender to predict absolute gamma power, such that higher maternal scaffolding was related to higher gamma more strongly for girls. Maternal scaffolding also interacted with absolute gamma to predict executive functions, such that higher gamma was related to better executive functions only when maternal scaffolding was average to high. Individual differences in early family experiences may partially buffer the neural underpinnings of cognitive skills from adversity in LMIC.

Neonatal Physical Growth Predicts Electroencephalography Power in Rural South African Children.

Anthropometric measures at birth, indexing prenatal growth, are associated with later cognitive development. Children in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are at elevated risk for impaired prenatal and early postnatal growth and enduring cognitive deficits. However, the associations of neonatal physical growth with neural activity are not well-characterized in LMIC contexts, given the dearth of early childhood neuroimaging research in these settings. The current study examined birth length, weight, and head circumference as predictors of EEG relative power over the first three years of life in rural Limpopo Province, South Africa, controlling for postnatal growth and socioeconomic status (SES). A larger head circumference at birth predicted lower relative gamma power, lower right hemisphere relative beta power, and higher relative alpha and theta power. A greater birth length also predicted lower relative gamma power. There were interactions with timepoints such that the associations of birth head circumference and length with EEG power were most pronounced at the 7-month assessment and were attenuated at the 17- and 36-month assessments. The results identify birth head circumference and length as specific predictors of infant neural activity within an under-resourced context.

A unified approach to demographic data collection for research with young children across diverse cultures.

Culture is a key determinant of children's development both in its own right and as a measure of generalizability of developmental phenomena. Studying the role of culture in development requires information about participants' demographic backgrounds. However, both reporting and treatment of demographic data are limited and inconsistent in child development research. A barrier to reporting demographic data in a consistent fashion is that no standardized tool currently exists to collect these data. Variation in cultural expectations, family structures, and life circumstances across communities make the creation of a unifying instrument challenging. Here, we present a framework to standardize demographic reporting for early child development (birth to 3 years of age), focusing on six core sociodemographic construct categories: biological information, gestational status, health status, community of descent, caregiving environment, and socioeconomic status. For each category, we discuss potential constructs and measurement items and provide guidance for their use and adaptation to diverse contexts. These items are stored in an open repository of context-adapted questionnaires that provide a consistent approach to obtaining and reporting demographic information so that these data can be archived and shared in a more standardized format. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Infants' neural sensitivity to social interactions varies by income and infant-directed speech.

Social interactions are essential for infant brain development, yet we know little about how infant functional connectivity differs between social and nonsocial contexts, or how sensitivity to differences between contexts might be related to early distal and proximal environmental factors. We compared 12-month-old infants' intrahemispheric electroencephalographic (EEG) coherence between a social and a nonsocial condition, then examined whether differences between conditions varied as a function of family economic strain and two maternal behaviors at 6 months, positive affect and infant-directed speech. We found lower EEG coherence from the frontal region to the central, parietal, temporal, and occipital regions during the social condition, but only for infants from higher-income families and infants whose mothers used higher proportions of infant-directed speech. In contrast, there were no differences between social and nonsocial conditions for infants from economically strained families or infants whose mothers used lower proportions of infant-directed speech. This study demonstrates that neural organization differs between a nonsocial baseline and a social interaction, but said differentiation is not present for infants from less privileged backgrounds. Our results underscore the importance of examining brain activity during species-typical contexts to understand the role of environmental factors in brain development.

Influencia del riesgo social en la teoría de la mente y funciones ejecutivas de adolescentes colombianos / Influence of Social Risk in the Theory of Mind and Executive Functions of Colombian Teenagers

Resumen El objetivo del presente estudio fue determinar la influencia del riesgo social en el rendimiento, en tareas de Funciones Ejecutivas (FE) y Teoría de la Mente (ToM) en adolescentes colombianos. Participaron 78 adolescentes (41 en riesgo social y 37 controles) entre los 13 y 16 años de edad seleccionados a través de un muestreo intencional. Se administró el Test de Palabras y Colores de Stroop, el Test de la Pirámide de México y el Test de Falso Paso para evaluar control inhibitorio, planificación y ToM, respectivamente. A pesar de que no se encontraron diferencias significativas en las FE de control inhibitorio y planificación, se encontraron diferencias en el desempeño en algunas dimensiones de la prueba de ToM. Adicionalmente, mientras que al interior del grupo sin riesgo social se observó una relación entre la ToM y las FE evaluadas, al interior del grupo en riesgo social estos procesos no estuvieron relacionados. Se concluye que un entorno de riesgo social parece no afectar las FE de control inhibitorio y planificación o la habilidad para detectar comportamientos inapropiados, pero sí la habilidad para realizar inferencias acerca de los estados mentales de los otros. Asimismo, un entorno de riesgo social es un factor ambiental que parece disociar el proceso de desarrollo de la cognición social y de los procesos ejecutivos en adolescentes, desarrollo que debería darse de manera paralela.

Abstract The objective of the present study was to determine the influence of social risk in the performance of Colombian adolescents in ToM and EF tasks. The participants were 78 adolescents (41 in social risk and 37 controls) between 13 and 16 years of age. The Stroop Test, the Pyramid of Mexico subtest and the Faux Pas Recognition Test where used to assess inhibitory Control, Planning and ToM in the participants, respectively. Although no significant differences were found in the executive functions of Inhibiting Control and Planning, some differences were found in the performance of the ToM test. Additionally, whereas in the control group a relationship between ToM and executive functions was observed, in the at social risk group these processes were not related. These findings reveal that being at social risk does not affect the Executive Functions of Control and Planning but it does have an effect in the ability to make inferences about the mental states of others. Moreover, being at social risk can be an environmental factor that can dissociate the development process of social cognition and executive functions, which are supposed to occur parallelly.