First 16 Months a Critical Period in Toddler’s Brain Development, Imaging Study Finds

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Around 16 months of age, infants activate more areas of the brain and develop key cognitive skills like following simple instructions and controlling their impulses. Findings from a study led by the Universities of Bristol and Oxford and published in the journal Imaging Neuroscience suggest that 16 months is a critical period for brain development.

The first two years of a child’s life are crucial for the development of cognitive abilities, especially executive functions that help regulate thoughts, actions, and behaviors in everyday life.

Inhibitory control is one of the key executive functions. This particular skill allows individuals to stop themselves from doing something due to an impulse, habit, or temptation. It is already known that inhibitory control begins to develop during infancy and continues to grow through toddlerhood. However, until now, the brain mechanisms involved in its development were unknown.

The researchers Oxford University Baby Lab and University of Bristol Baby Lab The researchers sought to examine brain activity in 16-month-old infants using a child-specific brain imaging technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). They had 103 infants complete a simple touchscreen task that required them to use inhibitory control skills. This experiment allowed the researchers to see which brain regions were activated when inhibitory control skills were used. The study replicated an earlier experiment conducted with the same group of children when they were 10 months old.

Previous studies have found that 10-month-old infants use the right side of the prefrontal and parietal cortex for inhibitory control. In this latest study, the team shows that by 16 months of age, infants use the left parietal cortex and both sides of the prefrontal cortex more extensively.

Interestingly, these brain changes occur despite the fact that how well the children performed on the task remained the same between 10 and 16 months of age. When the researchers tested the same group of children at 10 and 16 months of age, they found that as the babies grew into toddlers, the brain activation associated with this skill changed dramatically, even though they continued to try to stop the habitual behavior. This suggests that 16-month-olds were using more areas of the brain than 10-month-olds, even though the visible skill remained the same.

The results revealed that 16 months is a critical period for brain development, when young children learn to follow simple instructions and control their impulses.

This study Abigail FiskHe is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. Carla HolmboeAssociate Professor of Developmental Science, University of Bristol Department of Psychological Sciences.

“Our results are intriguing because they shed new light on major brain changes during the transition from infancy to toddlerhood, even though we did not find any improvements in inhibitory control abilities over this period,” the researchers said.

“Our findings provide new knowledge about the role of brain regions in early development and may aid future research in elucidating how an important cognitive ability (inhibitory control) and the brain regions involved in it develop from infancy to adulthood.”

Dr Fisk and Dr Holmboe added: “What does this mean for parents and caregivers? We often notice that young children often have a hard time stopping what they’re doing. Our research shows that there are many changes happening in young children’s brains, and we think these changes support the acquisition of this important new skill.”

This study Medical Research Council (MRC) and iCASE Award for Doctoral Students.

reference: Fiske A, Collins-Jones L, de Klerk C, et al.
Correlates of response inhibition across the transition from childhood to adulthood.
Early childhood: An fNIRS study. Imaging Neuroscience2024;2:1-21. doi: 10.1162/image_a_00206

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