Near-infrared spectroscopy and electroencephalography to assess cortical activation during motor tasks in infants and toddlers with or at high-risk for Cerebral Palsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder comp

Clinical Center

Investigators

Abstract

This project was severely impacted by COVID. We had collected data on multiple infants from 2018-2020, but has been very slow since we restarted enrollment in summer of 2022. We have dedicated considerable effort to recruitment this past year by visiting and connecting with local therapists who work with infants, distributing flyers to practitioners as well as in the surrounding community. We connected with a CP foundation who has a research website where they have posted our study information and after several months of negotiating and seeking approval at NIH, we entered into a contract with NextDoor to try and reach young families in the greater DC metro area. We hope that these efforts will boost recruitment soon because our early data showed that we could get reliable brain activation data in infants under a year of age during fundamental motor tasks such as reaching and stepping.