Doctors find foetuses 'see' light outside the womb
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Your support makes all the difference.Doctors have recorded for the first time the brain activity of unborn children "seeing" a light outside the womb.
Researchers in America used a scanning device to show foetuses responding to light shone through their mothers' abdomens. The scanner picked up electrical brain activity triggered by the eyes responding to the light.
This is one of the first occasions brain activity has been directly detected in unborn babies and the first time a visual response has been measured. Scientists believe that once the technique is refined it may help doctors detect early signs of brain damage in a foetus.
The technique, known as magnetoencephalography (MEG) measures tiny magnetic field changes that result from brain activity.
Dr Giovanna Spinella, of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, which funded the research, said: "Though this work is preliminary, it is a promising indication of how MEG may help researchers understand the foetal brain."
A team led by Dr Curtis Lowery, from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, tested the technique on 10 foetuses aged 28 to 36 weeks. Measurable brain responses were picked up from four of the 10 foetuses. Dr Lowery, whose results are published in The Lancet today, believes those that did not respond might have been asleep or in a position that prevented them seeing the light.
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