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Pucker up, Baby! Lips Take Center Stage in Infants’ Brains

10th July, 2018

[Source: Science Daily]

A typically developing 2-month-old baby can make cooing sounds, suck on her hand to calm down, and smile at people.

At that age, the mouth is the primary focus: Such young infants aren’t yet reaching for objects with their hands or using their feet to get around, so the lips — for eating, pacifying and communicating — multitask.

And at the same time, new research reveals a special neural signature associated with touching the baby’s lips, an indicator of how soon infants’ brains begin to make sense of their own bodies and a first step toward other developmental milestones.

A study led by the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) uses infant brain imaging to gauge how the hand, foot, and lips are represented in the brains of 2-month-olds — a much younger age than has been studied previously. It is believed to be the first to reveal the greater neurological activity associated with the lips than with other body parts.

Read the Rest of this Article on Science Daily

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