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Updated: Dec 8, 2025
Electrophysiological Measurement of Noxious-evoked Brain Activity in Neonates Using a Flat-tip Probe Coupled to Electroencephalography
Published on: November 29, 2017
The impact of parental contact upon cortical noxious-related activity in human neonates
Laura Jones1, Maria Pureza Laudiano-Dray1, Kimberley Whitehead1
1Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology, University College London, London, UK.
Insights
Parental touch significantly impacts infant pain processing. Skin-to-skin contact reduces brain activity related to painful stimuli, highlighting the importance of maternal presence in neonatal pain response.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Neonates exhibit pronounced responses to painful procedures.
- Parental presence modulates infant physiological and behavioral reactivity.
- The influence of parental contact on infant brain activity during pain is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of different parental contact types on neonatal brain activity during a noxious stimulus.
- To determine if maternal presence can modulate noxious-related cortical activity in infants.
Main Methods:
- Utilized electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity in neonates during a heel lance.
- Compared three groups: skin-to-skin contact, contact with clothing, and no contact.
- Employed global topographic analysis to identify event-related potentials (ERPs).
Main Results:
- A noxious event-related potential (nERP) was significantly smaller in neonates held skin-to-skin compared to those held with clothing.
- Distinct long-latency ERPs emerged post-stimulus, varying with parental contact.
- Parental contact altered the magnitude and pattern of noxious-related brain activity.
Conclusions:
- Parental contact is a crucial contextual factor influencing infant brain activity during pain.
- Skin-to-skin contact effectively attenuates noxious-related cortical responses in neonates.
- Maternal presence modulates neural mechanisms involved in processing painful stimuli in infants.
Background:
Neonates display strong behavioural, physiological and cortical responses to tissue-damaging procedures. Parental contact can successfully regulate general behavioural and physiological reactivity of the infant, but it is not known whether it can influence noxious-related activity in the brain. Brain activity is highly dependent upon maternal presence in animal models, and therefore this could be an important contextual factor in human infant pain-related brain activity.
Methods:
Global topographic analysis was used to identify the presence and inter-group differences in noxious-related activity in three separate parental contexts. EEG was recorded during a clinically required heel lance in three age and sex-matched groups of neonates (a) while held by a parent in skin-to-skin (n = 9), (b) while held by a parent with clothing (n = 9) or (c) not held at all, but in individualized care (n = 9).
Results:
The lance elicited a sequence of 4-5 event-related potentials (ERPs), including the noxious ERP (nERP), which was smallest for infants held skin-to-skin and largest for infants held with clothing (p=0.016). The nERP was then followed by additional and divergent long-latency ERPs (> 750 ms post-lance), not previously described, in each of the groups, suggesting the engagement of different higher level cortical processes depending on parental contact.
Conclusions:
These results show the importance of considering contextual factors in determining infant brain activity and reveal the powerful influence of parental contact upon noxious-related activity across the developing human brain.
Significance:
This observational study found that the way in which the neonatal brain processes a noxious stimulus is altered by the type of contact the infant has with their mother. Specifically, being held in skin-to-skin reduces the magnitude of noxious-related cortical activity. This work has also shown that different neural mechanisms are engaged depending on the mother/infant context, suggesting maternal contact can change how a baby's brain processes a noxious stimulus.
