GentleTouch (Study to Evaluate Somatosensory Evoked Potential (SSEP) Responses to Affective Touch and How it Develops in Healthy Term Babies)

Overview

This study will attempt to measure the direct effect of pleasant skin touch on the developing infant brain. The massage intervention stimulates a specific class of unmyelinated C-fibres in the skin called C-touch (CT) afferents, and effects will be assessed by monitoring brain responses (GentleTouch Project) in a prospective cohort study.

This is a single-centre proof of concept translational study to determine how and when Somato-sensory evoked potentials develop over the first 4 months of life. The aim of this study is to explore if the investigators can measure the cortical response from the scalp of infants using standard non-invasive EEG techniques, due to the activation of CT afferents and explore how the cortical response changes in regard to age. Preform a longitudinal study on 40 subjects at approximately 4 weeks and 4 months of age. The Gentle Touch study will examine the effect of gentle positive stimuli applied to an infant's forearm on cortical responses at two time points within the first 4 months of life.

Conditions

Eligibility

Locations (2)

Outcomes