“In adults, anything over 50 per cent would be considered abnormal, and at 85 per cent we would expect them to die within hours due to severe stroke.”ĭr Finnigan said slow brain waves were first reported in the 1950s but it had never been understood why they occurred in healthy newborns. These slow wave patterns accounted for an average 85 per cent of the brain activity in newborns.
“When we applied this analysis in the babies, we were surprised they had so much slow brain activity – typically about one wave per second compared to eight to 10 in adults,” Dr Finnigan said. “Our detailed analyses involve converting the EEG signals into objective measures of brain function, like blood pressure or a Richter scale.
"Our preliminary results in data from the first 60 babies look very promising."ĭr Finnigan’s collaboration with UQ Professor of Perinatal Medicine Paul Colditz was informed by his research on stroke patients, including studies with scientists in Barcelona. “If our measure is found to accurately predict outcomes, it could allow for early interventions and therapies to begin at the earliest possible opportunity, when they can be most effective.
“Clinical symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders – affecting movement, vision or other functions – often do not become evident until the toddler years or later,” Dr Finnigan said. University of Queensland researchers are investigating whether an electroencephalogram (EEG) could identify apparently healthy infants who will later be found to have neurodevelopmental deficits.ĭr Simon Finnigan from the UQ Centre for Clinical Research and the Royal Brisbane Clinical Unit said the measure would be statistically compared with clinical assessments of the infants at two years of age. The brain waves of healthy newborns – which appear more abnormal than those of severe stroke victims – could be used to accurately predict which babies will have neurodevelopmental disorders.