The effect of tiredness on attention, word-learning, and their respective brain regions in infancy.

睡眠不足对我们的认知、心理健康和大脑有害。睡眠在婴儿期尤为重要，因为需要不断巩固新信息。因此，与成年人类似，睡眠不足已被证明不利于认知和神经发育，特别是对于患有神经发育障碍（NDD）的人来说。尽管如此，睡眠不佳（疲劳）对婴儿认知方面的具体影响尚未确定。该项目通过探索疲劳对注意力和单词学习的影响（这两种受睡眠影响的重要认知技能）来填补这一关键空白。一种新颖的神经成像方法，功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS），将用于记录额叶和顶叶皮质的大脑活动，这是注意力和单词学习的关键大脑区域。将进行三项研究。第一个研究将 52 名 10 个月大的婴儿的疲劳（通过问卷）与注意力（通过 fNIRS 和无字图画书任务）联系起来。第二个研究将 52 名 16-24 个月大的婴儿的疲劳与注意力和单词学习（也使用 fNIRS）联系起来。最后，将探讨父母的睡眠和心理健康作为婴儿疲劳的预测因素。这些研究加在一起有可能产生重大影响。他们将发现有关疲劳的新发现，并为睡眠在发育中的作用带来新的视角。这项研究将为研究 NDD 有效干预措施的人们带来新知识，强调睡眠和疲劳在整个发育过程中的重要性。

A lack of sleep is harmful to our cognition, mental health, and our brains. Sleep is particularly important in infancy because of the need for continuous consolidation of new information. Thus, similar to adults, a lack of sleep has been shown to be detrimental to cognitive and neural development, particularly for those with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Despite this, the specific effects of poor sleep (tiredness) on aspects of infant cognition have not yet been determined. This project fills this crucial gap by exploring the effect of tiredness on attention and word-learning, two crucial cognitive skills affected by sleep. A novel neuroimaging method, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), will be used to record brain activation in the frontal and parietal cortices, key brain regions for attention and word-learning. Three studies will be conducted. The first will relate tiredness (via a questionnaire) to attention (via fNIRS and a wordless picture-book task), in 52 10 month-olds. The second will relate tiredness to attention and word-learning (also using fNIRS) in 52 16-24-month-olds. Lastly, parent sleep and mental health will be explored as predictors of infant tiredness. These studies, together, have the potential to make a significant impact. They will uncover novel findings about tiredness and bring a new perspective about the role of sleep in development. The study will bring new knowledge to those researching effective interventions for NDDs, highlighting the importance of sleep and tiredness across development.