Greenhalgh, Isobel, Blanco, Borja, Bulgarelli, Chiara, Mbye, Ebrima, Touray, Ebou, Rozhko, Maria, Katus, Laura, Hayes, Nathan, McCann, Samantha, Moore, Sophie E., Elwell, Clare E., Blasi, Anna and Lloyd-Fox, Sarah (2026) Cross-paradigm fNIRS brain activity in 1-month-old infants across The Gambia and the United Kingdom. Neurophotonics, 13 (S1):S13007. pp. 1-24. ISSN 2329-423X (Print), 2329-4248 (Online) (doi:10.1117/1.NPh.13.S1.S13007)

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Abstract

Significance: Neonates undergo rapid development, yet the examination of emerging brain markers across paradigms, cognitive domains, and diverse global populations remains limited.
Aim: We investigated whether brain responses at 1 month of age could be interrogated across paradigms to offer deeper context-specific insights into neurodevelopment.
Approach: Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to assess frontal and temporal brain responses during natural sleep in 181 infants from a low-income setting (rural Gambia) and 58 infants from a higher-income setting (Cambridge, United Kingdom) during three auditory paradigms: social selectivity, habituation and novelty detection, and functional connectivity. Paradigm-level brain responses were analyzed using threshold-free cluster enhancement and cross-paradigm comparisons of individual responses.
Results: Both Gambian and UK infants showed habituation but not novelty responses, higher inter- versus intra-hemispheric connectivity, stronger inter-hemispheric connectivity in temporal relative to frontal regions, stronger inter-regional connectivity between right temporal and left frontal regions, and nonvocal > vocal selectivity (UK infants only).
Conclusions: Cross-cohort differences in the cross-paradigm analyses suggest that context-specific developmental markers are evident within the first month of life and show high individual variability. Cross-paradigm analyses revealed that greater vocal selectivity (UK) is associated with higher inter-hemispheric connectivity, potentially allowing us to identify biomarkers of more mature neurodevelopment within the first weeks of postnatal life.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Preprint on bioRxiv at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.28.666710 - MP
Uncontrolled Keywords:	neurodevelopment, infant, SES, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, global populations
Subjects:	R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RC Internal medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > Institute for Lifecourse Development Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > Institute for Lifecourse Development > Centre for Vulnerable Children and Families Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2026 10:09
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/52308

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