A human fetus development simulation: Self-organization of behaviors through tactile sensation

Abstract

Recent progresses of ultrasound imaging technology have led observations of fetal intrauterine behavior and a perspective of intrauterine learning. Understanding fetal behavior in uterus is important for medical cares for prenatal infants, because the intervention like "nesting" or "swaddling" in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is based on a perspective of intrauterine learning. However, fetal behavior is not explained sufficiently by the perspective. In this study, we have proposed a hypothesis in which two fetal behaviors, Isolated leg/arm movements and hand and face contact, emerge within self-organization of interaction among an uterine environment, a fetal body, and a nervous system. through tactile sensation in uterus. We have conducted computer experiments with a simple musculoskeletal model in uterus and a whole body fetal musculoskeletal model with tactile for the hypothesis. We confirmed that tactile sensation induces motions in the experiments of the simple model, and the fetal model with human like tactile distribution have behaved with the two motions similar to real fetal behaviors. Our experiments indicated that fetal intrauterine learning is possibly core concept for the fetal motor development.

Impacts of environment, nervous system and movements of preterms on body map development: Fetus simulation with spiking neural network

“…We extended the human fetus model developed by Mori and Kuniyoshi [16] to cover any gestational age [17] (Fig. 1A-C).…”

Tactile stimuli from amniotic fluid guides the development of somatosensory cortex with hierarchical structure using human fetus simulation

“…We applied the fetus model with uterine environment model developed by Mori and Kuniyoshi to collect tactile stimuli of fetus in uterine [14]. In this fetus model, parameters such as the size, mass, moment of inertia of each body part, joint angle limits, muscle configuration and force were manipulated to match those of real human fetus at a gestational age [15].…”

“…For the fetal environment, we applied the amniotic fluid and uterine wall models produced by Mori and Kuniyoshi [14]. Moreover, 1500 tactile receptors were distributed across its entire body according to the two-point tactile discrimination threshold of body parts (Fig.1).…”

Adaptation of sensor morphology: an integrative view of perception from biologically inspired robotics perspective

“…Sensing processes of an organism occur not only in the receptor cells that convert physical stimuli into electric signals, but also the physical stimuli can be already significantly shaped before reaching the nervous system. Physical stimuli can be, for example, structured by the locations of the sensory receptors in the physical bodies (depending on the locations of receptors in animals' bodies, the stimuli given to the receptors are very different [6,7]). Similarly, physical stimuli are also dependent on active motions and sensory -motor control of organisms such as animals or humans.…”