A world-first brain research project

Pediatricians will in the coming years be able to more accurately evaluate a child's mental development, thanks to the world's first research project that aims to determine what standard brain function is across various ages.

The assessment of mental development in children is currently based on the circumference of the head as well as indicators such as recognition, memory and language skills, all of which can be fairly subjective, said Lin Weili, the leader of the US-based Baby Connectome Project and professor of neurology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We are aiming to establish the normal range of a human's brain development at different ages - just like the average heights and weights of children at different ages - so that in the future we can judge if a child is developing healthily through brain imaging," said Lin during the seventh annual Chinese Congress of Fetal Medicine held in Shanghai on May 25.

The project will see 500 children from the United States who are deemed to be developing normally undergo MRI scans which will map out the neural pathways that underlie human brain functions and behaviors. The children will be aged 0 to 5.

Initiated by Wyeth Nutrition and the National Institutes of Health of the US, the project was launched in October 2016. To date, 183 children have already completed their MRI tests.

Chinese medical experts have praised the initiative, saying that the project will allow for more objective and precise diagnosis and treatment for children.

"If a child appears to be unable to speak, we would normally attribute it to slow language development. But with such brain imaging, we could discover that it's actually another function area, say the motor area, that's developing slowly and affecting speech," said Wang Zhixu, chairman of the maternal and child nutrition branch of the China Nutrition Society.

While the project will take about four years to complete, some preliminary findings have already yielded new insights to early development in children.

"We have found that the language area of the brain starts to develop very quickly after a year. We used to think that it only happens around two years of age. As such, we believe this could potentially be the best time frame to let a child learn a second language," said Lin.

Lin added that he will be collaborating with research teams in China as part of the project, pointing out that he is fascinated with how Chinese children have a natural aptitude for mathematics.

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn