Developmental trajectories and neural correlates of working memory in toddlerhood

本研究将有助于理解婴幼儿早期执行功能（EF）的行为发展和神经相关因素。目前，大量的方法限制了我们对幼儿英语发展的了解。尽管如此，目前的研究指出，早期的英语能力有可能预测儿童后期的行为、认知和学业成绩。在孩子进入教室之前，早期识别那些继续发展认知和行为困难的孩子，将允许一个重要的时期，有效的临床或教育干预可以发生。这不仅对发展研究人员、临床医生和教育工作者，而且对儿童及其家庭的生活都具有至关重要的意义。本研究项目将努力实现四个目标：1)适应和设计两个适合幼儿（2-3岁）工作记忆调查的年龄任务。2)利用功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS）神经成像技术研究WM的神经基质，并利用脑电图（EEG）研究该年龄组注意力和认知灵活性的神经相关性。3)从一项正在进行的与我新开发的幼儿WM任务相关的纵向研究中分析婴儿数据，以探索WM从婴儿期（10个月）开始到幼儿期（3岁）的发展轨迹和神经相关因素。4)探讨婴儿期和学步期获得的WM测量值与3岁时儿童认知和行为功能的关系。通过收集一系列反映儿童在家庭和儿童保育环境中的适应功能的结果指标，我将能够确定与儿童早期较不理想结果最相关的发育轨迹和神经相关因素。除此之外，我还将以Gowerlabs Ltd.和牛津大学之间的现有合作为基础。Gowerlabs开发了fNIRS系统，我将把它作为我项目的一个组成部分，公司将继续提供专家知识和支持，作为他们对项目和跨学科知识进步的承诺的一部分。为了进一步加强这种合作关系，我打算在Gowerlabs实习，这将使我能够深入了解这种神经成像技术的机制，并了解改进这种技术以使EEG与fNIRS共同注册的基本过程，这将使我们能够进一步研究早期EF过程的神经基础。这次实习将会有很大的回报，因为这将是一个宝贵的机会，可以直接从我目前在我的项目中使用的光学成像技术的开发人员那里获得生物医学光学和工程方面的跨学科技能。因此，一个优化过程将会发生，根据我从实验经验中得到的反馈，我可以支持Gowerlabs调整他们的技术，以便研究人员能够真正利用fNIRS系统达到他们的预期目的，无论是与EEG共同注册，还是用于婴幼儿人群。此外，Gowerlabs可以提供支持和培训，使我能够简化和推进我的实验设计，使其最适合与fNIRS一起使用，并扩展我的数据分析技能，使我能够从项目中收集的fNIRS数据中得出准确而有意义的结论。

This research will contribute to the understanding of the behavioural development and neural correlates of early executive function (EF) in infants and young children. At present, a wealth of methodological constraints limit what we know about EF development in toddlerhood. Despite this, current research points to the potential of early EF abilities as predictors of behavioural, cognitive and academic outcomes later in childhood. The early identification of those who go on to develop cognitive and behavioural difficulties, before the child enters the classroom, would allow for a significant period in which effective clinical or educational intervention could take place. This is of vital significance, not only to developmental researchers, clinicians and educators, but also to the lives of children and their families. This research project will endeavour to achieve four aims: 1) To adapt and design two age-appropriate tasks for the investigation of working memory (WM) in toddlerhood (2-3 years). 2) To utilise functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging technology to investigate the neural substrates of WM, and also electroencephalography (EEG) to study the neural correlates of attention and cognitive flexibility, in this under studied age group.3) To analyse infant data from an ongoing longitudinal study in relation to my newly developed toddler WM tasks, in order to explore the developmental trajectory and neural correlates of WM from its beginnings in infancy (10 months) to the cusp of early childhood (3 years). 4) To investigate the relationship between measures of WM obtained in infancy and across toddlerhood, and children's cognitive and behavioural functioning at outcome (3 years). Through the collection of a range of outcome measures that reflect the child's adaptive functioning in home and childcare settings, I will be able to identify the developmental trajectories and neural correlates that are most associated with less optimal outcomes in early childhood. Alongside this, I will build upon an existing collaboration between Gowerlabs Ltd. and the University of Oxford. Gowerlabs have developed the fNIRS system that I will utilise as an integral part of my project, and the company continue to provide expert knowledge and support as part of their commitment to the project and to the advancement of interdisciplinary knowledge. In order to further strengthen this partnership, I intend to undertake an internship at Gowerlabs which will enable me to gain insight into the mechanisms of this neuroimaging technique, and to develop an understanding of the fundamental processes involved in refining this technology for the co-registration of EEG with fNIRS - which, rather excitingly, will enable further investigation into the neural underpinnings of early EF processes. This internship will be substantially rewarding, as it will be a valuable opportunity to obtain interdisciplinary skills in biomedical optics and engineering, directly from the developers of the optical imaging technology I am currently using in my project. As such, an optimisation process will occur whereby with my feedback from experimental experiences, I can support Gowerlabs to adapt their technology so that researchers can truly utilise the fNIRS system for their intended purpose, be it when co-registered with EEG, or for use with infant and toddler populations. Furthermore, Gowerlabs can offer support and training that will enable me to streamline and advance my experimental design to be optimal for use with fNIRS, and also to expand my data analysis skill set in a manner that will enable me to draw accurate and meaningful conclusions from the fNIRS data collected in my project.