Director's Message

The first 1000 days of a child’s life are a unique period when truly remarkable feats of brain development are accomplished.

Nearly 1,000,000 connections between brain cells (called neurones) are being formed each second, building a sophisticated and living brain network architecture that will subserve all the child’s vital abilities to sense, learn, act on the world and interact with people around them.

The formation of brain connections depends on the experiences and input provided by caregivers. Healthy neurodevelopment thrives on warm, responsive and closely-coordinated social interactions between infants and caregivers. These rich multidimensional experiences act through sensory and motor pathways to orchestrate maturation of the infant brain, mind and body. Conversely, adverse early life experiences seed vulnerabilities for poor cognition and emotional instability throughout the lifespan. Children who fail to develop adequate emotional regulation and cognitive control skills during their early years make up 80% of adults requiring social welfare and educational support. 

The Early Mental Potential & Wellbeing Research (EMPOWER) Centre seeks to make important scientific discoveries about how social factors shape the trajectory of a child’s brain and socioemotional development. We do this through our core neuroscience research programme that uses innovative imaging and advanced computational methodologies. We have pioneered a technique called dyadic sociometrics (patent pending), which uses real-time multi-sensor imaging and computer vision algorithms to capture precise details about how a caregiver and infant interact during playtime activities. This technique measures caregiver-infant coordination in gaze, speech, emotions, movement, brain activity and heartrate at high temporal precision, allowing us to sensitively characterise and predict a child’s developing cognition and socioemotional abilities from the first year of life. 

It is important that EMPOWER’s research has positive real-world impact beyond the laboratory. To do this we actively create translational pathways to apply our discoveries in real-world clinical and educational services and products. For example, we are developing instrumented toys and deep phenotyping tools for early screening and intervention for children at neurodevelopmental risk. We believe that early risk identification and mitigation, paired with personalised therapeutics, could fundamentally uplift a child’s developmental trajectory and optimise their potential. 

By combining precision science with a strong translational programme, EMPOWER aims to give every child a transformative start to a lifetime of brain and socioemotional health and wellbeing.