Gates Foundation funding moves African brain study into Phase II
$1million grant moves BRIGHT study into next phase
Researchers at Birkbeck’s Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (CBCD) have received a significant grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for an infant brain imaging project in Africa.
The funding will allow the interdisciplinary researchers to move to the next stage of the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) study –a project investigating crucial points where malnutrition affects infant brain development. This new grant, worth £671,823, follows an initial grant of Grand Challenges Exploration funding (approximately £65,645) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012.
The multi-institute group, including lead psychologist Dr Sarah Lloyd-Fox of the CBCD, demonstrated the first functional brain imaging of Africa infants in a Phase I study in 2013. They have now received Phase II funding to extend this into the next stage: a three year-long study tracking the development of individual children in the UK and the Gambia.
The group of researchers hope that with their non-invasive, light based technology - functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) - they can identify key markers of compromised development and guide intervention.
About fNIRS
- The first 24 months of life are crucial for brain development, but studying such young participants presents many challenges. Dr Lloyd-Fox, has spent much of her career so far optimizing an optical imaging technique, fNIRS (functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy), for the study of infant cognition.
- fNIRS uses headgear which emits and detects non-invasive near infrared light. This light travels through the skin and skull, but is reflected differently depending on the oxygen level and therefore brain activity in that area. It has already been used at CBCD to study infants at risk of autism in the UK, as well as in the field in the Gambia and Bangladesh.
This BRIGHT project will compare brain development from birth between groups of infants growing up in rural Gambia and those growing up in the UK, providing information about the effects of malnutrition and other risk factors and where best to target assistance.
The group, led by Professor Clare Elwell (UCL, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering), Dr Sophie Moore (Cambridge, Human Nutrition Research) and Dr Lloyd-Fox, will now follow children in Gambia from birth, using fNIRS and a multitude of cognitive tasks, to see whether malnutrition has an impact on brain development globally or whether certain brain regions and cognitive functions may be particularly vulnerable.
Dr Lloyd-Fox said: “It’s often said that the first 1,000 days of an infant’s life, from conception, are the most important. This work in Gambia will allow us to see, from the earliest possible point, how these children develop and any deviations from normal developmental patterns. We don’t know whether malnutrition affects brain development in a global manner or whether some parts of the brain are susceptible to under-development.”
Pioneering research
- Dr Lloyd-Fox explained that there had been little brain-activation research on the effects of malnutrition. Although it is known that malnutrition before the age of two can have far-reaching effects which extend into adulthood. Further, nutritional deficiencies in low income countries impair the growth and development of children and contribute to almost half of all child deaths worldwide.
- Of the 200 Gambian infants potentially involved with the study, Dr Lloyd-Fox said up to 20% could be severely malnourished. Therefore in the project they will be able to trace both typical and compromised development in these infants from birth.
Social cognition, attention and memory will be assessed with fNIRS as well as a measurement of functional connectivity to see how well the brain is communicating across regions. The families will also take part in a number of general behavioural cognitive tests and questionnaires to help the research group to understand the interplay between nutrition, brain function and other environmental factors.
The multidisciplinary team contains experts in nutrition, developmental science, fieldwork and statistics as well as brain imaging (for further information visit www.globalfnirs.org).
The partners are:
- Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory, University College London (UCL)
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London
- MRC International Nutrition Group, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and
- MRC Unit, The Gambia
- MRC Human Nutrition Research Cambridge
- neoLAB, Evelyn Perinatal Imaging Centre, Cambridge Hospital
- UCL Institute of Child Health
Find out more