{"id":279342,"date":"2025-10-05T11:06:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279342\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T11:06:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:06:19","slug":"born-to-connect-newborn-brain-already-wired-for-social-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279342\/","title":{"rendered":"Born to Connect: Newborn Brain Already Wired for Social Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>A new study reveals that the brain\u2019s social perception pathway\u2014a network that processes faces, gaze, and speech\u2014is already active at birth or shortly thereafter. Using advanced imaging data, researchers showed that newborns exhibit robust connectivity in regions responsible for visual and social processing.<\/p>\n<p>Infants with stronger early connectivity paid greater attention to faces at four months and displayed fewer social difficulties by 18 months. The discovery sheds light on the neural roots of social behavior and could inform early detection of autism spectrum disorder.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Early Activation:<\/strong> The brain\u2019s social perception network is active within weeks of birth.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Predictive Connectivity:<\/strong> Stronger newborn brain connectivity predicts better facial attention and social outcomes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Autism Insight:<\/strong> Findings could help identify early markers for social difficulties linked to autism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>Yale<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paying less attention to faces is one of the key markers of autism spectrum disorder. But while researchers have begun to uncover the brain network that supports processing of social stimuli such as faces, gaze, and speech, little is known about how and when it begins to develop.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a new study, Yale researchers have now found that this network is already quite active at birth or shortly thereafter, a finding that provides insight into the brain processes that underlie social behaviors later in life.<\/p>\n<p>  <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/social-brian-network-babies-neuroscience.jpg\" alt=\"This shows a baby's face.\"  \/> The researchers then did a similar analysis with children who had a family member with autism spectrum disorder, which increases their likelihood of developing social difficulties. Credit: Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p>The study was\u00a0recently published in\u00a0Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers suspected this pathway\u2014known as the social perception pathway\u2014might be functional very early in development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNewborns are already showing preference for faces and gaze,\u201d says\u00a0Katarzyna Chawarska, PhD,\u00a0Emily Fraser Beede Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and co-senior author of the study.<\/p>\n<p>First, the researchers used data from the Developing Human Connectome Project, a study funded by the European Research Council that\u2019s collecting brain imaging, clinical and behavioral data, and genetic information from children up to 10 months old.<\/p>\n<p>Using the project\u2019s magnetic resonance imaging data, the researchers assessed the functional connectivity across the brain areas that make up the social perception pathway, which includes regions dedicated to vision processing and an area called the superior temporal sulcus that specializes in processing faces, speech, and gaze information.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that connectivity within this network was already quite robust within a couple of weeks after birth,\u201d says senior author\u00a0Dustin Scheinost, PhD, associate director of biomedical imaging technologies at the Yale Biomedical Imaging Institute.<\/p>\n<p>The finding suggests that some of the social preferences seen in babies early on might be reliant on this pathway, Chawarska explains.<\/p>\n<p>Brain connectivity is linked to facial attention<\/p>\n<p>The researchers then did a similar analysis with children who had a family member with autism spectrum disorder, which increases their likelihood of developing social difficulties. Within this group, the pathway also appeared to be interconnected at birth, as the researchers had observed in the Developing Human Connectome Project participants.<\/p>\n<p>As they followed this second group of children over time, the researchers found that children who displayed stronger connectivity in the social perception pathway shortly after birth paid more attention to faces when they were 4 months old. Further, greater attention to faces at 4 months old was associated with fewer social difficulties at 18 months of age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis suggests that the cortical brain processes that give rise to social attention are likely at play shortly after birth and lay the foundation for development of social engagement skills,\u201d says Chawarska.<\/p>\n<p>The research team\u2014an interdisciplinary collaboration that included several researchers in the Child Study Center, the Department of Pediatrics, and the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at YSM, as well as the Department of Statistics and Data Science in Yale\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Sciences\u2014is digging further into this area. They are currently looking at additional measures of attention and\u00a0following a larger group of children\u00a0over time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis work will help us understand more about the brain processes that drive social attention in typical development and that may be involved in the social vulnerabilities we know are associated with autism,\u201d says Chawarska.<\/p>\n<p>Key Questions Answered:<strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>Q:<\/strong> When does the brain\u2019s social perception network begin developing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"schema-faq-answer\"><strong>A:<\/strong> Researchers found that it is already active within weeks after birth.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>Q:<\/strong> What does this social perception brain network control?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"schema-faq-answer\"><strong>A:<\/strong> It governs how the brain processes faces, speech, and gaze\u2014key elements of social behavior.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"schema-faq-question\"><strong>Q:<\/strong> How is this social perception brain network linked to autism?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"schema-faq-answer\"><strong>A:<\/strong> Babies with stronger early connectivity in this pathway showed better attention to faces and fewer social difficulties later, suggesting early brain wiring shapes social development.<\/p>\n<p>About this social neuroscience and neurodevelopment research news<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Author: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/medicine.yale.edu\/profile\/mallory-locklear\/#links-details-section\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mallory Locklear<\/a><br \/><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/medicine.yale.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Yale<\/a><br \/><strong>Contact: <\/strong>Mallory Locklear \u2013 Yale<br \/><strong>Image: <\/strong>The image is credited to Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Original Research: <\/strong>Open access.<br \/>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.bpsgos.2025.100597\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Functional connectivity in the social perception pathway at birth is linked with attention to faces at 4 months<\/a>\u201d by Katarzyna Chawarska et al. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Functional connectivity in the social perception pathway at birth is linked with attention to faces at 4 months<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Background<\/p>\n<p>The right-lateralized social perception pathway, including the superior temporal sulcus, supports processing of dynamic, multimodal facial cues, while the right-lateralized ventral pathway, including the fusiform gyrus, is involved in processing static facial features. However, little is known about the early development of these pathways or their links to later social outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>This study examined intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) in these pathways in neurotypical neonates and those with a familial risk for autism. We also investigated whether neonatal iFC was associated with reduced attention to faces at 4 months\u2014an early autism biomarker.<\/p>\n<p>Methods<\/p>\n<p>IFC was measured in 310 full-term, typically developing neonates from the Developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) at 41 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA; SD = 1.7), and in 73 full-term Yale neonates with and without a family history of autism at 44 weeks PMA (SD = 1.3). Attention to faces was assessed at 4.1 months (SD = 0.3) via eye-tracking in 37 Yale participants.<\/p>\n<p>Results<\/p>\n<p>All four pathways showed significant iFC (p  0.159). Connectivity in the social pathway increased with age (p <\/p>\n<p>Conclusions<\/p>\n<p>Right-lateralized social perception pathway represents an area of interest for identifying early neural markers of social vulnerabilities associated with autism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary: A new study reveals that the brain\u2019s social perception pathway\u2014a network that processes faces, gaze, and speech\u2014is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[823,824,826,827,828,210,829,830,831,159,83443,67,132,68,3812],"class_list":{"0":"post-279342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-asd","9":"tag-autism","10":"tag-brain-development","11":"tag-brain-research","12":"tag-developmental-neuroscience","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-neurobiology","15":"tag-neurodevelopment","16":"tag-neuroscience","17":"tag-science","18":"tag-social-neuroscience","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-yale"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115321240608172437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}