Children of Blind Mothers Learn New Modes of Communication

A loving gaze helps firm up the bond between parent and child, building social skills that last a lifetime. But what happens when mom is blind? A new study shows that the children of sightless mothers develop healthy communication skills and can even outstrip the children of parents with normal vision.

Eye contact is one of the most important aspects of communication, according to Atsushi Senju, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist at Birkbeck, University of London. Autistic people don’t naturally make eye contact, however, and they can become anxious when urged to do so. Children for whom face-to-face contact is drastically reduced—babies severely neglected in orphanages or children who are born blind—are more likely to have traits of autism, such as the inability to form attachments, hyperactivity, and cognitive impairment.

To determine whether eye contact is essential for developing normal communication skills, Senju and colleagues chose a less extreme example: babies whose primary caregivers (their mothers) were blind. These children had other forms of loving interaction, such as touching and talking. But the mothers were unable to follow the babies’ gaze or teach the babies to follow theirs, which normally helps children learn the importance of the eyes in communication.

Apparently, the children don’t need the help. Senju and colleagues studied five babies born to blind mothers, checking the children’s proficiency at 6 to 10 months, 12 to 15 months, and 24 to 47 months on several measures of age-appropriate communications skills. At the first two visits, babies watched videos in which a woman shifted her gaze or moved different parts of her face while corresponding changes in the baby’s face were recorded. Babies also followed the gaze of a woman sitting at a table and looking at various objects.

The babies also played with unfamiliar adults in a test that checked for autistic traits, such as the inability to maintain eye contact, not smiling in response to the adult’s smile, and being unable to switch attention from one toy to a new one. At each age, the researchers assessed the children’s visual, motor, and language skills.

When the results were compared to scores of children of “sighted” parents, the five children of blind mothers did just as well on the tests, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Learning to communicate with their blind mothers also seemed to give the babies some advantages. For example, even at the youngest age tested, the babies directed fewer gazes toward their mothers than to adults with normal vision, suggesting that they were already learning that strangers would communicate differently than would their mothers. When they were between 12 and 15 months old, the babies of blind mothers were also more verbal than were other children of the same age. And the youngest babies of blind mothers outscored their peers in developmental tests—especially visual tasks such as remembering the location of a hidden toy or switching their attention from one toy to a new one presented by the experimenter.

Senju likens their skills to those of children who grow up bilingual; the need to shift between modes of communication may boost the development of their social skills, he says. “Our results suggest that the babies aren’t passively copying the expressions of adults, but that they are actively learning and changing the way to best communicate with others.”

"The use of sighted babies of blind mothers is a clever and important idea," says developmental scientist Andrew Meltzoff of the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences in Seattle. "The mother’s blindness may teach a child at an early age that certain people turn to look at things and others don’t. Apparently these little babies can learn that not everyone reacts the same way."

Meltzoff adds that there are many ways to pay attention to a child. “Doubtless, the blind mothers use touch, sounds, tugs on the arm, and tender pats on the back. Our babies want communication, love, and attention. The fact that these can come through any route is a remarkable demonstration of the adaptability of the human child.”

New therapy device enables stroke victims to recover further

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have developed a new stroke rehabilitation device which greatly improves recovery in stroke patients.

Thanks to this invention, stroke patients who had undergone conventional rehabilitation for a year or more and had hit a plateau in their recovery, managed to make significant progress in their ability to carry out everyday tasks.

Some of these long-term stroke sufferers have recovered up to 70 per cent of motor function clinical scores in just a month during the trial.

The new stroke therapy system, known as Synergistic Physio-Neuro Platform (SynPhNe), is currently undergoing thorough clinical investigations and more feasibility trials at local hospitals.

In use for 150 therapy hours, it has not had any side effects so far. Patients who tried SynPhNe also said they experienced little fatigue while using this easy-to-use system.

Developed by Dr John Heng, a senior research fellow at NTU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and his PhD student, Mr Banerji Subhasis, this system gives hope to frustrated patients who want to see more progress after completing conventional rehabilitation therapies.

The NTU research team of four has published over 11 scientific papers since 2008 on the principles of the system, its effectiveness and ease of use.

“While current rehabilitation systems do benefit many patients, there are also other patients who still have difficulties performing everyday activities like holding a fork or drinking from a cup, despite the usual rehab sessions,” said Dr Heng.

“SynPhNe works by giving real-time feedback to the patients on what is happening in their mind and in their muscles. Patients using SynPhNe know where their problems lie and can slowly work towards overcoming each problem, instead of feeling frustrated and going through a painful, expensive and prolonged trial-and-error process when their improvements are not visible.”

How it works

SynPhNe consists of patented computer software connected to a specially designed headset with neural sensors and a sensor arm glove. The device is designed to be worn easily by stroke patients who usually have control of only one arm.

These sensors provide feedback on the stress, attention, and relaxation levels of the mind and which muscles are being activated or inhibited by the patient. The software contains instructional videos for limb movements which the patient can mimic to improve his/her performance of various tasks.

Sensor information is displayed in real time via the computer screen so that the patient is aware of what is happening in his mind and body while undergoing the rehabilitation exercises.

Dr Heng said that while multi-model associative learning is known to be useful in the development of babies and in education, it is the first time that their research team is adapting it for stroke therapy. Tested on 10 patients so far, it has shown to be very effective in accelerating the recovery in stroke patients.

In associative learning, a patient will find out the link between cause and effect, or intent and physical result. The patient learns what he/she wants to do and what is actually happening with their limbs. This helps the patient to self-correct movements to match intended actions.

“For example, if a patient wants to move his wrist, but his wrist is not moving, SynPhNe will be able to show him that his mind had sent out a signal, his muscles have received it, but because supporting and opposing muscles are clenched, he will need to relax the opposing muscle in order to move his wrist,” Mr Subhasis explained.

“Another common problem is that the patient may feel stressed while undergoing therapy, which affects his muscle control. So by showing the stress level on the screen, SynPhNe will teach the patient how to control his breathing and posture to regain his balance and composure so that he can continue with the exercises.

“In short, SynPhNe makes patients aware of what is happening with their bodies so they learn how to relax their mind and muscles. This helps them to re-learn simple actions like holding a pen or a cup which may be arduous tasks for stroke victims.”

Ramping up patient trials

Patient trials are still on-going and 10 patients have undergone the trial for 12 sessions, each lasting 90 minutes. Over a four-week period, they have all shown some improvement on the clinical scales. It was found that patients with hand control and hand weakness problems improved the most, in several cases, up to 70 per cent.

The scientists started the patient trials in October 2012 at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and are embarking on another similar trial at the National University Hospital. Talks are underway to start another trial at Singapore General Hospital and in India.

SynPhNe, which took over five years to develop, have also won successive grants from the National Medical Research Council, the National Research Foundation’s Proof-of-Concept grant and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)’s Innovation Grant.

Start-up to look into commercialisation

Apart from conducting further trials involving 50 more patients, the next step for the scientists is to form a start-up company to turn the SynPhNe prototype into a portable stroke therapy kit for home use. This kit is expected to be cheaper than most robotic rehabilitation systems in the market which may cost over tens of thousands of dollars.

“This reduction in cost will allow for perhaps a rental or subsidy scheme for patients who wish to practise in the convenience of their own home instead of having to go to rehabilitation centres. It has the added advantage of providing constant updates of instructional videos and exercises to match the patient’s improvement and can even send their reports to their therapists via the device’s Wi-Fi capabilities,” Prof Heng added.

The idea to develop SynPhNe was inspired by the mind-and-body-as-one philosophy preached in traditional practices such as Taichi, Aikido and Yoga, and the health benefits they bring.

Mr Subhasis, a martial arts and yoga practitioner for more than 30 years had sought to bring this health benefit to people through modern yet simple, affordable technology. In the latest study, the patients who synergised their minds and bodies best (based on the brain and muscles signals recorded by SynPhNe) made the most dramatic improvements.

 “Training the patients to self-regulate their mind and body increases their confidence to make positive changes in their lives. It also helps therapists better customize rehabilitation routines based on the individual patient’s capabilities and perceptions,” Mr Subhasis added.

The Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMART) and Technology Transfer Office at NTU (NIEO) are assisting the research group with the commercialisation process.

A Chimp’s Point Of View: Goggles simultaneously monitor a chimpanzee’s eyes and field of view

Chimps with camera goggles on their heads are helping scientists learn how the apes literally see the world.

From a scientific perspective, the eyes are windows to the mind. What people watch is one key sign of what they might be thinking, so monitoring their gazes can help researchers learn about what is going on inside people’s heads.

Scientists have conducted eye-tracking studies on people for more than 100 years. However, comparably little work has been conducted with other primates. Such work promises to shed light on humanity’s closest living relatives, and how they might perceive the world differently.

"If we know the differences between chimpanzees and humans, we will have an insight into how human perception has evolved," said comparative psychologist Fumihiro Kano at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Until recently, eye-tracking research involved desk-sized machines confined to labs. Investigators now have access to portable, wearable eye-trackers, enabling scientists to learn how people look at and interact with the world in a more natural way. This enables them to research topics such as how experts look at the world differently from novices. Now Kano and his colleagues are using these devices to study chimps.

"Everybody wants to see the world through chimpanzee eyes, right?" Kano said. "That’s one of my childhood dreams. How do chimpanzees, the closest relatives of humans, see the world?"

The researchers placed lightweight goggles on a 27-year-old female chimpanzee named Pan that had one camera monitor her right eye and another aimed at her field of view, both of which sent data to a portable recorder. The mobile setup allowed the chimp to move and behave freely.

"We modified the eye-tracker goggle shape so that the chimpanzee could wear it and like it," Kano said. "If the chimpanzee felt uncomfortable wearing the goggles, she wouldn’t care about throwing it away!"

When Pan wore the eye-trackers, the scientists practiced a two-minute gestural task with her that she had already learned for several years. The researchers performed one of three gestures — touching their noses, touching their palms, or clapping their hands — and gave Pan pieces of apple from a transparent box as a reward whenever she copied that task. The goggles also captured the greetings Pan often gave people before tasks, such as pant-grunting or swaying.

"No researcher has been successful in recording the natural gaze of chimpanzees before," Kano said.

The researchers found out how Pan looked at the world differently depending on what she was doing. For instance, when greeting experimenters, the chimpanzee focused on their faces and feet — the latter presumably to see where they were going — but during the gestural task, she gazed at the experimenters’ faces and hands. In addition, while Pan mostly ignored the fruit reward before the gestural task, she looked at it 30 times more during the task. Kano indicated that this focus on the fruit reveals that Pan was thinking ahead to anticipate the future.

"This work builds toward an understanding not just of how chimpanzees learn about the world, but how they want to influence it," said neuroethologist Stephen Shepherd at Rockefeller University in New York, who did not take part in this research. "We can use gaze as a readout of what chimpanzees think is important to attend and affect."

Moreover, past research with desk-mounted eye-trackers hinted chimps did not look at familiar faces any longer than unfamiliar ones, but these new findings suggest otherwise — Pan looked at unfamiliar experimenters longer than familiar ones.

The researchers think one reason for the difference may have been because the previous studies used pictures of faces, shown for a shorter amount of time. In the new experiment, Pan also looked at familiar people longer if they were not in rooms where she was accustomed to seeing them.

The researchers plan on testing more chimpanzees with these wearable eye-trackers. They also want to compare the apes with people and other primates.

"It will be very interesting to see how humans, chimpanzees and other primates use gaze while performing the same real-world tasks," Shepherd said. "I would love to know if chimpanzees are intermediate between humans and monkeys, or if they’re just like humans."

In addition, future research will analyze how chimpanzees predict the actions of people and other chimpanzees. How the apes predict the actions of others in real-time, “that is, within a fraction of a second, is largely unknown,” Kano said.

Kano and his colleague Masaki Tomonaga detailed their findings online March 27 in the journal PLOS ONE.

We assume people stare at us

People often think that other people are staring at them even when they aren’t, vision scientists have found.

In a new article in Current Biology, researchers at The Vision Centre reveal that, when in doubt, the human brain is more likely to tell its owner that they’re under the gaze of another person.

“Gaze perception – the ability to tell what a person is looking at – is a social cue that people often take for granted,” says Professor Colin Clifford of The Vision Centre and The University of Sydney. 

“Judging if others are looking at us may come naturally, but it’s actually not that simple – our brains have to do a lot of work behind the scenes.”

To tell if they’re under someone’s gaze, people look at the position of the other person’s eyes and the direction of their heads, Prof. Clifford explains. These visual cues are then sent to the brain where there are specific areas that compute this information.

However, the brain doesn’t just passively receive information from the eyes, Prof. Clifford says. The new study shows that when people have limited visual cues, such as in dark conditions or when the other person is wearing sunglasses, the brain takes over with what it ‘knows’.

In their study, the Vision Centre researchers created images of faces and asked people to observe where the faces were looking.

“We made it difficult for the observers to see where the eyes were pointed so they would have to rely on their prior knowledge to judge the faces’ direction of gaze,” Prof. Clifford explains. “It turns out that we’re hard-wired to believe that others are staring at us, especially when we’re uncertain.

“So gaze perception doesn’t only involve visual cues – our brains generate assumptions from our experiences and match them with what we see at a particular moment.”

There are several speculations to why humans have this bias, Prof. Clifford says. “Direct gaze can signal dominance or a threat, and if you perceive something as a threat, you would not want to miss it. So assuming that the other person is looking at you may simply be a safer strategy.”

“Also, direct gaze is often a social cue that the other person wants to communicate with us, so it’s a signal for an upcoming interaction.”

There is also evidence that babies have a preference for direct gaze, which suggests that this bias is innate, Prof. Clifford says. “It’s important that we find out whether it’s innate or learned – and how this might affect people with certain mental conditions.

“Research has shown, for example, that people who have autism are less able to tell whether someone is looking at them. People with social anxiety, on the other hand, have a higher tendency to think that they are under the stare of others.

“So if it is a learned behaviour, we could help them practice this task – one possibility is letting them observe a lot of faces with different eyes and head directions, and giving them feedback on whether their observations are accurate.” 

New learning and memory neurons uncovered

A University of Queensland study has identified precisely when new neurons become important for learning.

Lead researcher Dr Jana Vukovic from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) said the study highlighted the importance of new neuron development.

“New neurons are continually produced in the brain, passing through a number of developmental stages before becoming fully mature,” Dr Vukovic said.

“Using a genetic technique to delete immature neurons in animal models, we found they had great difficulty learning a new spatial task.

“There are ways to encourage the production of new neurons – including physical exercise – to improve learning.

“The new neurons appear particularly important for the brain to detect subtle but critical differences in the environment that can impact on the individual.”

The study, performed in QBI Director Professor Perry Bartlett’s laboratory, also demonstrates that immature neurons, born in a region of the brain known as the hippocampus, are required for learning but not for the retrieval of past memories.

“On the other hand, if the animals needed to remember a task they had already mastered in the past, before these immature neurons were deleted, their ability to perform the task was the same – so, they’ve remembered the task they learned earlier,” Dr Vukovic said.

This research allows for better understanding of the processes underlying learning and memory formation.

(Image Caption: Newly generated neurons doublecortin positive in the dentate gyrus of a degenerating hippocampus in mutant mice lacking the transcription factor TIF-IA. Credit: Rosanna Parlato (AG Schütz, DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance)