The Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) Project: Longitudinal cohort study protocol

Abstract

There is a scarcity of prospective longitudinal research targeted at early postnatal life which maps developmental pathways of early-stage processing and brain specialisation in the context of early adversity. Follow up from infancy into the one-five year age range is key, as it constitutes a critical gap between infant and early childhood studies. Availability of portable neuroimaging (functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG)) has enabled access to rural settings increasing the diversity of our sampling and broadening developmental research to include previously underrepresented ethnic-racial and geographical groups in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). The primary objective of the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project was to establish brain function - using longitudinal data from mother - for-age reference curves infant dyads living in the UK and rural Gambia and investigate the association between context-associated moderators and developmental trajectories across the first two years of life in The Gambia. In total, 265 participating families were seen during pregnancy, at 7-14 days, 1-, 5-, 8-, 12-, 18- and 24-months post-partum. An additional visit is now underway at 3–5 years to assess pre-school outcomes. The majority of our Gambian cohort live in poverty, but while resource-poor in many factors they commonly experience a rich and beneficial family and caregiving context with multigenerational care and a close-knit supportive community. Understanding the impact of different factors at play in such an environment (i.e., detrimental undernutrition versus beneficial multigenerational family support) will (i) improve the representativeness of models of general cognitive developmental pathways from birth, (ii) identify causal pathways of altered trajectories associated with early adversity at both individual and group level, and (iii) identify the context-associated moderators (i.e. social context) that protect development despite the presence of poverty-associated challenges. This will in turn contribute to the development of targeted interventions.

Growth in early infancy drives optimal brain functional connectivity which predicts cognitive flexibility in later childhood

“…Due to disruptions to field work as a result of a political crisis in December 2016 - January 2017 that forced us to pause recruitment, data were collected in two ranges of preschool ages, younger preschoolers (age mean ± SD=47.96 ± 2.77 months) and older preschoolers (age mean ± SD=57.58 ± 2.11 months) (85).…”

Cognitive control in infancy: Attentional predictors using a tablet‐based measure

“…This study uses data from the UK cohort within the BRIGHT Project. While the study has been conducted in both the UK and The Gambia, the BabyScreen assessments described in the present study were only administered in the UK (see Lloyd-Fox et al, 2023, for further discussion about feasibility work within The Gambian cohort).…”

“…Participants were invited to 8 scheduled visits from late pregnancy to 24-months postpartum. The visits included eye-tracking and behavioral assessments (for full protocol, see Lloyd-Fox et al, 2023). Figure 1 details the specific ages at each study visit, the number of participants that attended the visit, and reasons for participant withdrawal.…”