Touch for Life: New Insights for its Role in Preterm Infants
Professor Francis McGlone, a neuroscientist in LJMU’s Somatosensory and Affective Neuroscience Group, is a leading figure in the study of touch and its stimulus of the brain.
His ‘back in the sac’ project has created a prototype incubator to recreate the type of tactile environment pre-term infants usually experience in utero.
Impact on the Liverpool City Region
Working with the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, he is trialling the incubator to understand how by putting affective touch back into the baby’s life, we can make significant improvements in the way its brain and immune system develops.
Professor McGlone said: “The incubator has progressed over many decades but this could be the final component of its evolution. With pre-term infants numbering around 15 million globally, from a market perspective it’s huge; if you look at it from a human perspective, it’s also huge.”
Academics
Professor Francis McGlone