Insights and innovation of PIPKIN: a longitudinal research study on the impact of social environment on the infant's brain from birth to 1 year of life

Birth represents the most significant change in environment and stimuli that a brain experiences in its whole lifetime and it is responsible for triggering periods of rapid growth and development. On this account, the Interactive Specialization theory (Johnson, 2000, Johnson, 2001) has supported the idea that birth symbolizes a critical transitional point during the development of neurocognitive functions, particularly related to the processing of social information. During the third trimester of pregnancy, the human fetus has already developed the capacity to process perceptual information, but newborn visual preferences are often attributed to innate mechanisms or to rapid imprinting. Nevertheless, being the immediate postnatal period one of the most extremely critical and sensitive times for understanding early-stage markers of later outcomes, it becomes extremely challenging to conduct research on this timeframe. To date, even the latest and more modern brain-imaging technologies do not have the capacities to fully define details in adult brains, and many of these cannot be used with babies, let alone with fetuses. On top of that, despite the massive advances accomplished during the last century in our understanding of the brain and its cognitive functions, this has been significantly restricted to only a specific and limited proportion of the population. In particular, current data still represent predominantly those who are financially mobile and live within high-income settings, namely WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies (Henrich et al, 2010, Barrett, 2023), leaving those most at risk for experiencing socio-economic and health challenges completely underrepresented (Mapes et al., 2020). For the abovementioned reasons, the following thesis will highlight a new fascinating longitudinal study which I had the honor to follow during my traineeship, developed specifically to raise awareness on new developmental trajectories and to answer to several unresolved questions. The research in question is the PIPKIN Study (Perinatal Imaging in Partnership with Families), an ongoing, dense, longitudinal research study started in January 2022, investigating on the development of the infant brain and the impact of the infant’s social environment, carried out at the Department of Psychology of the University of Cambridge by Professor Mark Johnson, Dr. Sarah Lloyd-Fox, and their team. By following families from a range of socio-economic backgrounds from the 3rd trimester of pregnancy through their infant’s first year, this study aims at understanding human development from a closer, deeper, and innovative point of view. In designing family-friendly interventions PIPKIN looks forward to ensuring that infants from every walk of life have the best possible opportunity to develop to their full potential. The aim of PIPKIN is to track infant development by investigating how the infant’s brain is shaped by social interactions and by examining the impact and role of the surrounding environment through home visits in the very postnatal period. This study will use 4D ultrasound technology to study the infant in the womb, portable neuroimaging techniques such as Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and Electroencephalography (EEG) to track brain development and rapid postnatal specialization of brain functions both at their home and in the lab, as well as eye tracking measurements, behavioral scales (MSEL and NBAS), parent child interaction observations, parental mind-mindedness interviews, and online questionnaires to have a new, broad, and complete perspective on human development from birth throughout the first 9 months of life.