GentleTouch

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  GentleTouch (Study to evaluate Somatosensory Evoked Potential (SSEP) responses to affective touch and how it develops in healthy term babies)

• IRAS ID

  243181

• Contact name

  Ronit Pressler

• Contact email

  r.pressler@ucl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University College Cork

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 8 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  Treatments targeting specifically pleasant, CT-mediated touch, such as massage, could potentially provide a complementary, non-pharmacological means of treating both the physical and psychological aspects of chronic skin conditions or pain in newborn babies. However we do not know how these peripheral pathways for pleasant tactile stimulation develop in the very young.
  
  The Gentle Touch study will examine the effect of gentle positive stimuli applied to an infant’s forearm on cortical responses at two time points within the first 4 months of life.

  Parents of healthy Infants (born >37 weeks, without suspected congenital or metabolic anomalies) will be recruited.
  We will aim to record the effect of pleasant touch on a healthy infant using Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SSEP) at 4 weeks and then at 4 months of age. A standard clinical evoked potential (EP) machine will be used to determine cortical responses. Evoked potential (EP) tests are the electrical activity of the brain in response to stimulation of specific sensory nerve pathways. Infants will wear an EEG cap (complete with electrodes) to permit rapid and easy setup. The stimulus presented to the infants will be a (disposable) light weight cosmetic brush which will be brushed slowly along the infant’s inside and outside of the forearm. To compare, we will also ask the parents to replicate the investigational stimulus by stroking their infant’s forearm in the same manner.

  At the 4 month visit infants will also have a video electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while they take a sleep. A trained Griffith's assessor will also carry out a developmental assessment (Griffiths III) at this visit. This will determine if the infants are developing normally at 4 months.

  At the 4 week and 4 month appointments we will take some measurements of weight, height and ask some questions regarding babies sleep and health.

• REC name

  London - Central Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  18/LO/0363

• Date of REC Opinion

  16 Mar 2018

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion