Assistant Professor Barbara L. Thompson, PhD was quoted in the Miami Herald this week in an article discussing her recent publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Thompson's work suggests maternal stress may delay development in infants, with electroencephalographs showing diverging patterns of brain activity in infants as young as two months of age.
From the article:
“Is it meaningful long term is something we’re following up on. Previously we’ve only seen this among infants 6 months and older, and it’s remarkable that this early in life there are differences in neural activity under perceived stress,” said Dr. Barbara L. Thompson, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State University and one of the study’s authors.
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“I’m most hopeful that this will give us some insight allowing us to identify those infants that could use the most supports and potentially mitigate the long-term consequences of early toxic stressors,”