Examining Cross-Paradigm fNIRS Brain Activity in Neonates across The Gambia and UK

Greenhalgh, I.; Blanco, B.; Bulgarelli, C.; Mbye, E.; Touray, E.; Rozhko, M.; Katus, L.; Hayes, N.; McCann, S.; Moore, S. E.; Elwell, C. E.; Blasi, A.; Lloyd-Fox, S.; the BRIGHT Project Team,

doi:10.1101/2025.07.28.666710

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.07.28.666710

Examining Cross-Paradigm fNIRS Brain Activity in Neonates across The Gambia and UK

Greenhalgh, I.·Blanco, B.·Bulgarelli, C.·Mbye, E.·Touray, E.·Rozhko, M.·Katus, L.·Hayes, N.·McCann, S.·Moore, S. E.·Elwell, C. E.·Blasi, A.·Lloyd-Fox, S.·the BRIGHT Project Team,

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Abstract

SignificanceNeonates undergo rapid development, yet the examination of emerging brain markers across paradigms, cognitive domains and diverse global populations remains limited. AimThis study investigated whether brain responses at one-month-of-age could be interrogated across paradigms to offer deeper context-specific insights into neurodevelopment. ApproachFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to assess frontal and temporal brain responses during natural sleep in 181 Gambian (GM) and 58 UK infants during three auditory paradigms: Social Selectivity, Habituation and Novelty Detection (HaND) and Functional Connectivity (FC). Paradigm-level brain responses were analysed using threshold-free cluster enhancement and cross-paradigm comparisons of individual responses. ResultsAt the group level, both GM and UK infants showed habituation but not novelty responses, higher inter-versus intra-hemispheric connectivity, stronger inter-hemispheric connectivity in temporal regions relative to frontal regions, stronger inter-regional connectivity between right temporal and left frontal regions, and UK infants also showed non-vocal > vocal selectivity. ConclusionsCross-cohort differences in the cross-paradigm analyses suggest context-specific developmental markers are evident within the first month of life and show high individual variability. Cross-paradigm analyses revealed that greater vocal selectivity (UK) was associated with higher inter-hemispheric connectivity, potentially allowing us to identify biomarkers of more mature neurodevelopment within the first weeks of postnatal life.

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Greenhalgh, I., Blanco, B., Bulgarelli, C., Mbye, E., Touray, E., Rozhko, M., Katus, L., Hayes, N., McCann, S., Moore, S. E., Elwell, C. E., Blasi, A., Lloyd-Fox, S., the BRIGHT Project Team,. 2025-07-31. Examining Cross-Paradigm fNIRS Brain Activity in Neonates across The Gambia and UK. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.28.666710

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