Your fetus is 'wired' to be a social being
Just a few hours after birth, a newborn is able to interact socially by imitating a facial expression. A newborn will also look to build social interaction, over and above simple observation of his or her surroundings.
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But does this social capacity exist even before birth? To find out more, Italian researchers recorded the movements of 5 pairs of twins from the 14th to 18th weeks of pregnancy, using 3D colour scan images.
One can imagine that if babies are “pre-wired” to socially interact before birth, twin fetuses should carry out some form of interaction. Even though they touch each other from the 11th week of pregnancy onwards, do they “willingly” approach each other rather than accidentally touch or touch by reflex?
To find out more, Umberto Castiello studied 20 minutes of ultrasound recordings of the movements of 5 pairs of twins in the womb (normal pregnancies with sufficient amniotic fluid). Three types of hand movements were isolated and analysed: hand-to-mouth and hand-to-eye movements and movements directed to the uterine wall rather than the other fetus.
The results were astonishing: movement duration was longer when twins touched, followed by slower deceleration time when moving hands away. When the twins touched themselves or the uterine wall, their gestures were more succinct.
The study authors conclude that social interaction movements are not accidental; they are planned on a motor level as early as the 4th month of pregnancy. The fetuses could therefore memorise and then anticipate the sensorial consequences of a movement and use these consequences to plan a movement relating to the nature of the target, this would explain their “innate” capacity for social interaction. They were already socialising with their sibling in the womb!
The study authors nevertheless remind us that fetus’ behaviour “is considered to directly reflect developmental and maturational processes of the feetal central nervous system”. Perhaps future experiments will help to discover the origin of these prenatal social interactions, which would permit, in the long term, very early identification of possible social behavioural issues later on.
Source: "Wired to be social: The Ontogeny of human interaction", Castiello U, coll., Plos One, October 2010
Copyright © 2011 Doctissimo
Posted 12.01.2011
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