{"id":13,"date":"2016-05-20T22:20:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2016\/?p=13"},"modified":"2017-07-05T09:32:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T16:32:03","slug":"getting-ahead-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/spring-2016\/getting-ahead-hardship\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Ahead of Hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The babies and toddlers wear unusual headgear. Some sitting in their mothers\u2019 laps sport a lacy cap of 128 electrodes. Others wear a band with optical sensors wrapped around their small heads. All are part of a study to measure the structure and function of their brains.<\/p>\n

Born into the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, these children face many obstacles to healthy development, including malnutrition, infection and pollution. Their early exposure to adversity can have long-term repercussions. For example, says Boston Children\u2019s Hospital Postdoctoral Research Fellow Katherine Perdue \u201905, researchers working in Bangladesh have noticed worse cognitive outcomes for children who experienced infections at a young age. Dr. Charles Nelson, Perdue\u2019s advisor and director of the hospital\u2019s Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, had found similar shortcomings in the brain function of severely neglected Romanian orphans.<\/p>\n

\"Of
Of her work studying the brains\u00a0of children, Perdue says, \u201cI was\u00a0attracted to the focus on social\u00a0impact.\u201d Here she poses with\u00a0members of the community where\u00a0her study takes place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perdue is part of a multinational research team led by Nelson that wants to help children\u2019s brains live up to their full potential. They\u2019re creating a testing toolkit to determine better ways to assess cognitive development and to protect young brains from environmental stressors in Bangladesh and other developing countries.<\/p>\n

Knowing that environment shapes the developing brain, the researchers from Boston and the University of Virginia, University College London and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh hope to identify which stressors have the greatest impact on future brainpower. They believe taking a quantitative approach rather than relying on observed behaviors will make it possible to intervene earlier if a child\u2019s brain isn\u2019t developing normally. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also saw promise in this thinking and funded their two-year effort to examine the connections between early adversity and brain development in more than 300 babies and toddlers in urban and rural Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

When a country has limited resources, you need to figure out how to maximize the ability to help kids with investments that are possible.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Katherine Perdue ’05<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first few years of life are so crucial to brain development,\u201d says Perdue. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at ways to tease out what\u2019s happening, especially in parts of the world where brain development can get knocked offline.\u201d<\/p>\n

To do this, they\u2019re using three noninvasive imaging techniques. One is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which Perdue says is considered the \u201cgold standard\u201d for measuring brain anatomy but scarce in the developing world. Another is electroencephalography (EEG)\u2014that\u2019s where the cap of electrodes comes into play\u2014to test for memory and direct neural activity. The third technology is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), Perdue\u2019s area of expertise and the focus of her doctoral work in engineering at Dartmouth College. With fNIRS, a band containing light sources and detectors is placed around a baby\u2019s head to look at brain function via oxygen levels.<\/p>\n

\"This
This functional near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) cap is designed for infant brain measurement. The optical fibers are arranged in an alternating pattern of source fibers (A) and detector fibers (B) on the forehead over the prefrontal cortex. An accelerometer (C) records infant motion during an experiment. The fibers can also be positioned over the ears to measure
the temporal cortex.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis is a much more complicated and ambitious project than has been done before,\u201d says Perdue. \u201cTeasing out which stressors are most important is the pipedream. When a country has limited resources, you need to figure out how to maximize the ability to help kids with investments that are possible. Right now, we have a lot of information about the stressors they\u2019re exposed to and are looking at brain function, but we haven\u2019t yet put the two together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the Boston researchers accomplished a lot in a short time. Perdue explains,\u201cIn one year, we set up a lab across the world, trained people, got data back and started data analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been easy. No study like theirs had ever been done in Bangladesh. The apartment building housing the lab didn\u2019t have appropriate electricity for the imaging equipment, which had made a perilous journey over rutted roads. The medical officers and field researchers at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka required training. Most of the Boston team members had to simultaneously work on other ongoing research projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strength of the project is that we trained our collaborators in Bangladesh to collect data rather than doing it ourselves. It\u2019s a testament to them and their hard work. Many of the people there don\u2019t use computers in their everyday lives, but to run the study, they have to watch two different computers and a baby at the same time,\u201d\u00a0says Perdue, who helped set up the fNIRS testing in Dhaka and trained staff in the technology both there and in Boston.<\/p>\n

While in Bangladesh, Perdue learned that her collaborators were personally acquainted with the environmental stressors they were studying. She says, \u201cEveryone I worked with who had a child spent a lot of time at hospitals because of illness or accidents. Having an advanced degree didn\u2019t insulate them from hardships. Yet people in Bangladesh take the hardships in stride and have a lot of hope for their country\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perdue missed the Boston research team\u2019s October return trip to Bangladesh because her own\u00a0baby with her husband, Cal Pierog \u201905, was due (Leo was born Oct. 26). But she says, \u201cI would love to go back. I found out the people of Bangladesh are wonderful and famously welcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the project, along with another examining the brain response and facial expressions of typically developing infants in Boston, continues to provide the professional experiences Perdue sought when she joined Nelson\u2019s lab in 2013. After studying physics as an undergraduate and a theoretical side of engineering in graduate school, she says, \u201cI was attracted to the focus on social impact. I wanted to work with someone who cared for children and their well-being so deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perdue hadn\u2019t worked with children before but is enjoying the switch from adults. She says, \u201cIn some ways, adult brains are boring. They don\u2019t change that much. I also like the technical challenge of working with children, figuring out how to get robust data from people who can\u2019t be given instructions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of a researcher suits her as well. Perdue says, \u201cI was bitten by the research bug at Mudd. I was doing experimental physics at the time, and professors [James] Eckert and [Patricia] Sparks really inspired me. I first fell in love with brain imaging at Mudd, too, when I took a biophysics class with Professor [Richard] Haskell. I had been studying cognitive science and physics, but it hadn\u2019t occurred to me before then that I could combine them in this way. I\u2019m happy where I am now. I get to focus on research and science and have the opportunity to work with great people on interesting projects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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