moderately and late preterms have problem recognizing faces after birth

ARTICLE IN PRESS+Model www.jped.com.br EDITORIAL Prematuros moderados e tardios apresentam problemas em reconhecer rostos após o nascimento Marco Bartocci, MD, PhD Medical Director Neona

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EDITORIAL

Prematuros moderados e tardios apresentam problemas em reconhecer rostos após o nascimento

Marco Bartocci, MD, PhD

Medical Director Neonatology Department, Astrid Lindgren’s Children’s Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden

Humanscommunicatemore withourfaces thananyother

creature

The face is an extremely complex system

regulat-ing affective responses According to Heise,1 affective

responses formed intofeelings arethe everyday basis for

generatingculturalevents.Thus,thefacecanbeconsidered

asakeyelementinsocialization

Theabilitytorecognizefacesisimportantforthehuman

sociallifeandattachmentbehavior,notonlyasadultsbut

also as a newborn child This gift is somewhat present

alreadyatbirth, wheninfantsexpressa stronginterestin

face-likefigures andcandifferentiate between facialand

non-facialimages

Childrenbornpretermmaysufferfromdifferent

neuro-developmentalproblems and neuropsychologicaldisorders

than children born full term.2,3 Prosopagnosia,the

inabil-itytorecognizefaces,alsocalled‘‘faceblindness’’,canbe

apartofprematurity-relatedneurodevelopmentaldisorder

spectrum,but alsoan isolatedevent.Preterm infants are

morelikelytosufferfromprosopagnosia.4Itcanhavea

pro-foundimpactofachild’slife,asitisagreatsocialhandicap,

夽 Please cite this article as: Bartocci M. Moderately and late

preterms have problem recognizing faces after birth J Pediatr (Rio

J) 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2016.10.002

夽夽SeepaperbyPereiraetal.inpagesx-y.

E-mails:marco.bartocci@ki.se , marco.bartocci@karolinska.se

leadingtodifficultiesinmakingfriendsandparticipatingin socialactivitiesinschool,aswellasincreasedlevelsof anx-iety.Thus,itisofgreatinteresttoinvestigatethisareaof socialdevelopment,especiallyamongpreterminfants The article from Pereira et al.5 is an original study addressing facialpreferences during thefirst twodays of lifeandcomparingthereactionofpretermandterm new-borninfantstotheexposuretonaturalanddistortedfaces Although the predilection to orientate oneselfto a natu-ral face had been previously shown in term infants both shortly after birth6 and aroundthree month postnatally,7

in this study Pereira et al.5 focused on a group of late preterm(gestationalage33 -36weeks,mean35±1.11).An importantaspect of the Pereira’s study5 is its focus ona particular group of subjects, such asthe moderately and latepreterms, who account for approximately10% of all births.8

Theabilitytoorientatetoanimageresemblingtheface

ofitsownspeciesiscommonamongalargevarietyof verte-brates,includinghumans,showingsimilardomain-relevant predispositionsshortlyafterbirth.9

Therelevanceandoriginalityofthestudypresentedby Pereiraetal.ismainlyrelatedtothefactthatonegroupwas composedbypretermnewborns.Thestudyshowedthatthe abilitytodistinguishanaturalfacefromanunnaturalfaceis significantlydiminishedinpreterminfantswhencompared withterminfantsduringthefirst48h

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jped.2016.10.002

0021-7557/© 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).

JPED-443; No of Pages 2

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The authors discussed possible reasons for these

find-ings.TheCONSPECandCONLERNprocesstheoriesforface

recognition were briefly reviewed.10 An alteration of the

CONSPEC, possibly related to a shorter period for haptic

explorationby the babythat in turn may influence brain

maturationduringthelasttrimesterofgestation,maybea

possibleexplanation.11,12

Other possibleexplanationsmay befoundin adelayed

or eventually impaired developmentof crucialareas that

areresponsiblefortheprocessingoftheinformation

com-ingfromthevisualareasintheoccipitalcortex.Theseareas

include, for example, the gray matter involving the left

fusiform,amygdala, andtemporalcortex.13 These regions

are touched by the so-called ventral stream, which is

thought to be responsible for object, face, and scene

recognition.14

ThestudypresentedbyPereiraetal.5addsnewinsights

totheunderstandingofprematurity-relateddevelopmental

disorders,whichincludeprosopagnosia

Conflicts of interest

Theauthordeclaresnoconflictsofinterest

References

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2013;309:1810 -20.

1975;56:544 -9.

8 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics CDC Wonder online database Available from:

gallus)and human newborns PLoS ONE 2011;6:e18802.

96 -102.e1.