Keyword: FinnBrain

A summer job at church children’s camps changed the life of the upper secondary school student. Working with children sparked a desire to help and understand vulnerable children and young people. This eventually led Riikka Korja to become a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Turku. Her passion is to help not only the vulnerable, but also early career researchers and students.

According to a new Finnish study, greenness around the home in early childhood does not seem to protect children from atopic eczema. Instead, the proximity of coniferous, mixed forests and agricultural areas was associated with elevated risk of eczema. The effect was seen especially in children who were born in the spring. 

The FinnBrain research of the University of Turku has demonstrated for the first time that the stress the father has experienced in his childhood is connected to the development of the white matter tracts in the child’s brain. Whether this connection is transmitted through epigenetic inheritance needs further research.

Doctoral Candidate, MD Anna Aatsinki is finishing her dissertation about the connection between gut microbiota and development of the nervous system. Next, she aims to study how breast milk’s composition affects infant brain – there is plenty to discover in the nascent field.

A new study shows that individuals who react negatively to rules and recommendations and have lower trust in doctors more often use complementary and alternative medicine, that is, treatments or substances that are not included in the care offered or recommended by doctors. The study included altogether 770 parents of young children.

Mother's chronic prenatal psychological distress and elevated hair cortisol concentrations are associated with gut microbiota composition of the infant, according to a new publication from the FinnBrain research project of the University of Turku. The results help to better understand how prenatal stress can be connected to infant growth and development. The study has been published in the esteemed Psychoneuroendocrinology journal.

According to a new study, sleep problems among infants are very common and normally improve by the time the child reaches the age of two. The study was carried out by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the University of Turku.

Study shows correlation between mothers’ self-reported pregnancy-related anxiety, and babies’ blood flow to brain areas responsible for emotional responses when listening to sad speech.

A joint project of the University of Turku's FinnBrain study and the University of California-Irvine (US) investigated the impact of the predictability of parent interaction on a child's development. The study was published in EBioMedicine journal.