Causes and consequences of infant neuromotor development: The Generation R Study

textabstractDue to the complexity of the brain, and the many genetic and environmental determinants, there are endless ways in which the brain can develop, leading to at least as many possibilities in the expression of these variations in behaviours or cognitive functioning. Although the study of the brain is as old as science itself, it is just until recently that we have begun to understand more about how the brain works. Historically, scientists who dedicated their work to understanding the central nervous system came from different disciplines: medicine, biology, psychology, physics, chemistry, mathematics. However, the study of the brain has been revolutionized when an interdisciplinary approach was taken, yielding a new synthesized perspective. Similarly, existing knowledge on infant neurological development has increased during the past decades. It is based on insights generated by paediatrics (developmental neurology), movement science and neuropsychology. Currently, neuromotor development is an accepted means of measuring the maturity and intactness of an infant’s central nervous system. Impaired development of the central nervous system in the first year of life is mainly expressed in deviances in neuromotor development