A new Stanford University study discovered that not only can babies tell their mom’s voice from other female voices, but even a small amount of noise from mom stimulated a large amount of brain activity – auditory, emotional, facial recognition, memory and reward processes, MRI scans showed.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the strength of the babies’ inter-brain connections predicted the child’s social communication scores later in life (between ages 7 and 12).
This study may help developmental researchers better understand social development disorders like autism, especially given the importance of a child being able to associate with voices during development.
The study did have a very small sample size of just 24, but is still a precursor for more research.
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