Slimmed-down YOUth study gearing up for relaunch

Last year, YOUth’s Gravitation Grant came to an end, and with it the collection of data as part of the cohort study. Chantal Kemner, professor of Biological Developmental Psychology and scientific director of YOUth, refused to give up. She obtained the funding necessary for YOUth to launch a modest survey research project again. Neuroscientist Elise Turk is the new executive director and updates us on the latest YOUth-related developments.

When the Gravity Grant for the YOUth study came to an end last autumn, everything stopped in the research rooms at University Medical Center Utrecht. No babies cooing while their brains were being studied, no toddlers playing on the floor and no curious teenagers wanting to know all about the eye-tracking equipment. It was a big shame, because YOUth had been following the brain and behavioural development of a large group of children for many years, which generated a lot of unique data.

MRI of foetus and baby

Elise Turk knew about YOUth from her time in the Neonatology Department at the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, where she was doing doctoral research on brain development. "I was doing MRI research on pregnant women; then, when the babies were born, we looked at their brains again. That was a great sub-study, so when Chantal said that she was going to relaunch YOUth and asked me if I was interested in helping, my immediate reaction was ‘yes’."

Continuing to follow children

The main priority was to start collecting new data on the YOUth children again as soon as possible, to avoid any gaps in the cohort study. However, Chantal and Elise had a number of hurdles to overcome first. 1. The old YOUth staff are now working elsewhere, often within UU or at University Medical Center Utrecht. 2. The new grants are modest. And 3: University Medical Center Utrecht is currently undergoing renovation, leaving the Child Expertise Centre (KinderKennisCentrum) without a research location. These are all good reasons to start off with a written survey research project. Elise: "We have a group of children that we were following at various times, starting with their mothers’ pregnancies and then, again, in the first year after their birth. We always saw these children again when they were three and six years old. However, we have missed these measuring moments with some of the children. We would like to collect data about these particular children now. To find out how they and their parents are doing. We can’t study their brains, but we can monitor their behavioural development via questionnaires. This is the age at which the first signs of problems like ADHD or autism start to show."

YOUth has developed a very close bond with many families over the years, so we hope they will agree to participate

Bond with participating families

Obviously, a questionnaire is less interesting for the parents and children than the occasional outing to the Child Expertise Centre for biomedical and other research. Elise: "But YOUth has developed a very close bond with many families over the years, so we hope they will agree to participate. If we start to follow these children again, it will greatly increase the value of the dataset." For the time being, about 700 children will receive a letter in July. YOUth also hopes to invite them back for research when they are 9 and 12 years old.

How did the coronavirus pandemic affect children?

Besides all the above, a grant from ZonMW means that YOUth can now start the new PRINDOUT study too. If a woman has an infection (like a cold, flu or COVID-19) while pregnant, it can affect how her baby develops, Elise explains. "We think that this can happen if the infection causes the baby’s brain networks to develop less well. This grant, combined with the unique YOUth data and the additional questionnaires we are going to send out, will make it possible for us to study this issue in depth."

Valuable data

One thing has not ground to a halt in recent months: interest in the YOUth data "Our data are very popular with researchers from UU and elsewhere. We even get requests from researchers abroad. This is both brilliant and unique; all the data we collected before are really bearing fruit now.

Using data to improve data analysis

The YOUth data are also helping researchers from the Sciences and the Experimental Psychology section to develop new analysis techniques. Elise: "I personally think this is really great. Examples include techniques like video and image processing with artificial intelligence. Our many measurements are really paving the way for improvements to techniques like these."