Babies' Brain Responses to Strangers

Recruiting

• Conditions: Infant Development

• Registration Number: NCT06550245
• Lead Sponsor: University of California Santa Cruz

Brief Summary

Researchers at the Diversity in Development Lab at UC Santa Cruz are investigating how babies' brain activities respond to people from familiar and unfamiliar racial backgrounds.

Detailed Description

The goal of this observational study is to learn how infants' brain activities, as captured by EEG, differ for familiar or unfamiliar racial group in typically developing infants. The main questions of the study are:

* Will infants show greater event-related desynchronization (i.e., more motor system activation), frontal theta synchronization (i.e., more attention), and more positive frontal alpha asymmetry (i.e., more approach motivation) to familiar than unfamiliar racial group?

* How does infants' exposure to racial diversity in their social network and neighborhoods relate to these EEG activities? Participants will visit a laboratory at the UC Santa Cruz campus for this study. Infants will put an EEG cap on and watch about 15 minutes of videos, in which people from different racial backgrounds do different actions (e.g., grabbing an object, saying hi and approaching closer, and playing peek-a-boo). Caregivers will be asked to fill out a demographic form and a social network survey.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2024-07-23
• Study First Submitted: 2024-08-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-08-09
• Study First Posted: 2024-08-13
• Status Verified: 2025-03
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-03-03
• Last Update Posted: 2025-03-06
• Primary Completion: 2025-10
• Study Completion: 2025-10

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 100

Inclusion Criteria

• typically developing
• age 7 to 12 months
• at least 37 weeks gestation

Exclusion Criteria

• any known developmental delays
• less than 37 weeks gestation

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Mu event related desynchronization	Through study completion, an average of 10 years.	EEG oscillation in alpha power over central regions
Frontal theta synchronization	Through study completion, an average of 10 years.	EEG oscillation in theta power over frontal regions
Frontal alpha asymmetry	Through study completion, an average of 10 years.	left and right hemispheric difference in EEG oscillation in alpha power in the frontal regions

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Social Science 2 Building; 🇺🇸 Santa Cruz, California, United States