Biobehavioral Research Laboratory For Families

We are so grateful for the families who participate in our research. Thank you! Without you, none of our work would be possible. In an effort to keep participating families informed, we update this page periodically with snippets of our newsletters and other study-related news.

Frequently asked questions

What do you study?

In this project, we study how early environmental exposures affect children's health and development. We are particularly interested in understanding the role that these factors have on children's mental health, physical health, and neurodevelopment, including the biological pathways that may shape these outcomes.

Why am I a part of this study?

You are eligible to participate in this study if you have participated with us in the past. Families were enrolled in pregnancy. We have begun a new round of data collection beginning in 2024. Our study staff will contact you once your child is eligible (typically around their birthday).

Why do you ask for biosamples?

Biosamples can give us important (non-diagnostic) information about what your child's body has experienced and how it is functioning.

• Teeth, like the rings of a tree, help us understand child exposures to chemicals and other substances during different periods of development.
• Urine is liquid gold! It can tell us about how children's bodies are handling stress and what kinds of chemicals are in the child's environment.
• Blood can tell us how children's immune systems are functioning and how healthy their cells are.
• Hair gives us information about cortisol, an important stress hormone.

Who is running the study?

The lab's director, or "Principal Investigator," is Michelle Bosquet Enlow, PhD. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist.

What if I need to mail something study-related (like biosamples or questionnaires)?

Visit our contact us page for our mailing address.

I am super busy! I'm worried I may not have time to participate.

Our study staff is extremely flexible, and we are able to accommodate most of our families' busy schedules. We are available for evening and weekend study visits and are around during most holidays and school vacations. Reach out and we can work out a time!

Recent findings

Learn about our recent findings.

• During pregnancy, we took hair samples from mothers to measure cortisol, a stress hormone. We found that different levels of cortisol in pregnancy were related to infants' emotions.
  • Fun Fact: Each 3cm segment of a hair sample can show cortisol levels for a trimester of pregnancy. Using hair to measure cortisol is a non-invasive way to study fetal exposures that can affect child development.
• Positive experiences during a mother's childhood may have a protective effect on how her children's genes function.
• Maternal diet during pregnancy may protect against negative effects of prenatal stress on infant behavior.
• A caring maternal-infant relationship offers young children many benefits including:
  • An enhanced ability to manage biological responses to stress in infancy
  • Better neurocognitive abilities (working memory, behavioral control) in preschool
  • Protection against mental health problems in adolescence
• Children's temperament and sex (boy vs. girl) influence how they respond to mothers' experiences and behaviors.

For more information about our research, visit the ECHO website. For anything else, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Newsletters

Frequently asked questions

What do you study?

In this project, we study how individual and environmental factors influence children's mental health. We are particularly interested in understanding how measures of neural functioning, attention, temperament, physiology, genetics, epigenetics, and the social environment affect child vulnerability or resilience to developing anxiety throughout development.

Why am I a part of this study?

You are eligible to participate in this study if you enrolled in this study when your child was an infant. We have begun a new round of data collection beginning in 2024. Our study staff will contact you once your child is eligible (typically around their 11th birthday).

What does participation entail?

We have options for in-person and remote participation. Remote participation includes both you and your child completing a set of questionnaires. In-person participation includes completing a set of questionnaires in addition to a 2.5-hour visit to the lab a brain-based assessment of emotion processing, physiology assessment, and several behavioral tasks.

Who is running the study?

The lab's director, or "Principal Investigator," is Michelle Bosquet Enlow, PhD. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist.
 

I am super busy! I'm worried I may not have time to participate.

Our study staff is extremely flexible, and we are able to accommodate most of our families' busy schedules. We are available for evening and weekend study visits and are around during most holidays and school vacations. Reach out and we can work out a time!

Recent findings

• A child’s ability to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors in early life is associated with the length of their telomeres. Telomeres are small caps located at the ends of chromosomes that maintain chromosomal integrity. Longer telomeres have been associated with better health.
• The functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging data collected from infancy through 7 years have helped advance publicly available national neuroimaging databases.
• fNIRS responses to emotional facial expressions in infancy give us information about which children are more likely to develop anxiety challenges later. Specifically, greater activation in the right section of the brain (compared to the left) during the observation of happy faces was associated with an increased likelihood of internalizing (e.g., anxiety) as well as externalizing (e.g., aggression) behaviors at age 5.
• Greater child autonomic nervous system reactivity (heart rate, respiration) while watching a fearful video at age 3 years was linked to greater child anxiety symptoms at age 5 years, especially if their parents also had anxiety.

For more information about our research, please don't hesitate to contact us!

Dr. Bosquet Enlow is also a Principal Investigator at the Boston Children’s Hospital site of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study.

For more information about HBCD, please visit the HBCD website or the Boston Children’s HBCD page.