Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Human Development

The study of behavioral and neurophysiological indicators of development in children and adults with a history of institutionalization is devoted to a detailed analysis of short- and long-term effects of this experience. Our findings demonstrate that the direct effects of institutionalization are observed in the group of children living in orphanages in reduced brain activation in response to perceiving emotional information, which indicates altered social-emotional development of this group. As part of the study of the long-term effects of the institutionalization, we showed that adolescents who had an experience living in orphanages show lower levels of inhibitory control and executive functions compared to their peers. The analysis of indicators of language development and reading in this group revealed the presence of a reduced sensitivity to the lexical characteristics of stimuli in comparison to the matched controls. At the level of brain functioning in the group of adults with a history of institutionalization we found reduced brain activation compared to their peers who did not experience institutionalization. These differences might underlie the cognitive impairments of adolescents with a history of institutionalization.

While researching the intergenerational effects of institutionalization, we studied children raised by mothers with a history of institutionalization. Our findings show that children raised by mothers with a history of institutionalization demonstrate a delay in expressive communicative development in comparison with children brought up by mothers without experience of institutionalization. We hypothesize that delaуs in the expressive communication domain, and social and emotional development of children brought up by mothers with experience of institutionalization are related to the quality of dyadic. interactions.

Implemented results of research:

In our research we obtained and analyzed valuable information on the developmental features of children and adults with experience of institutionalization. A comprehensive description of the behavioral and neurophysiological characteristics of these groups contributes to fundamental science, expanding knowledge about the effects of social deprivation on various mental functions; this has significant implications for clinical work and policy.

Our findings expand the current understanding of how social deprivation (i.e. the absence of biological parents in a child's life) at the early stages of life affects subsequent development. In terms of translational science, these data provide valuable insight into the effects of institutionalization on the development of intellectual, language, speech and adaptive domains in children and adults and could be a foundation for the designing of interventions such as educational and social programs for orphans and children left without parental care.

Education and career development:

Within the framework of the program for the training of highly qualified scientific and pedagogical personnel, 8 PhD dissertations were completed on the basis of the laboratory. Under the programs for the training of scientific and pedagogical personnel in graduate school, as well as the bachelor's, specialist's and master's programs, 8 graduate qualification diplomas were successfully defended under the supervision of the laboratory’s PI and research fellows. More than 100 students and specialists have completed their internships on the basis of the laboratory.

In collaboration with the Way Out Foundation for Assistance in Solving Problems of Autism in Russia with support from the Sberbank Charitable Foundation «Investment to the Future», the laboratory has created «Autism Spectrum Disorder», a course that was implemented on the online education platform Coursera.org.

Collaborations:

• University of Houston, USA: collaborative research, cooperatively analyzed the behavioral and neurophysiological data of the study participants with institutional experience, and collaboratively published manuscripts in international journals.

• Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences: collaborative research, cooperatively analyzed the genetic data of the study participants with institutional experience, and collaboratively published manuscripts in international journals.