ArticlePediatric research2021
Shedding light on excessive crying in babies.
Article in Pediatric research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Maternal Support Framework Studying Mothers' Perceived Understanding and Support During Excessive Infant Crying: Exploratory Qualitative Study.JMIR pediatrics and parenting · 2025Article
- Characterizing Olfactory Brain Responses in Young Infants.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Objective Detection of Newborn Infant Acute Procedural Pain Using EEG and Machine Learning Algorithms.Paediatric & neonatal pain · 2025Article
- Article
- Functional structure of local connections and differentiation of cerebral cortex areas in the neonate.NeuroImage · 2024Article
- Design of a hazard prediction system with intelligent multimodal fusion based on artificial intelligence & internet of things technology: taking a crib as an example.PeerJ. Computer science · 2024Article
- The Irritable Infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Risk Factors and Biomarkers of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.The Journal of pediatrics · 2024Article
- Early regulatory problems and parenting: life-long risk, vulnerability or susceptibility for attention, internalizing and externalizing outcomes?European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundExcessive and inconsolable crying behavior in otherwise healthy infants (a condition called infant colic (IC)) is very distressing to parents, may lead to maternal depression, and in extreme cases, may result in shaken baby syndrome. Despite the high prevalence of this condition (20% of healthy infants), the underlying neural mechanisms of IC are still unknown.
methodsBy employing the latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques in newborns, we prospectively investigated whether newborns' early brain responses to a sensory stimulus (smell) is associated with a subsequent crying behavior.
resultsIn our sample population of 21 healthy breastfed newborns, those who developed IC at 6 weeks exhibited brain activation and functional connectivity in primary and secondary olfactory brain areas that were distinct from those in babies that did not develop IC. Different activation in brain regions known to be involved in sensory integration was also observed in colicky babies. These responses measured shortly after birth were highly correlated with the mean crying time at 6 weeks of age.
conclusionsOur results offer novel insights into IC pathophysiology by demonstrating that, shortly after birth, the central nervous system of babies developing IC has already greater reactivity to sensory stimuli than that of their noncolicky peers. IMPACT: Shortly after birth, the central nervous system of colicky infants has a greater sensitivity to olfactory stimuli than that of their noncolicky peers. This early sensitivity explains as much as 48% of their subsequent crying behavior at 6 weeks of life. Brain activation patterns to olfactory stimuli in colicky infants include not only primary olfactory areas but also brain regions involved in pain processing, emotional valence attribution, and self-regulation. This study links earlier findings in fields as diverse as gastroenterology and behavioral psychology and has the potential of helping healthcare professionals to define strategies to advise families.
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