Investigating Yawning in Fetuses, Neonates and Infants

Yawning is a stereotyped phylogenetically and ontogenetically old behavioral pattern, ubiquitous to vertebrates, yet the complexity of its modulation mechanisms - involving, e.g., circadian rhythms, hunger, thermoregulation, pain, stress and social co-regulation of arousal - still eludes the interdisciplinary effort aimed at individuating its proximate and ultimate functions. During the last years, one particular theory that sees yawning as a mechanism to thermoregulate the brain has emerged for its capacity to explain a vast set of evidence related to yawning modulation, but alternative hypotheses keep being formulated and investigated by different research groups, including biologists, ethologists, neuroscientists, physicians and psychologists. In this context, human perinatal and infant research can play an important role in the perspective of distinguishing between ontogenetically primitive and derived modulatory mechanisms and investigating their developmental trajectories, yet research in this field is still limited. The talk presents three recent studies carried out at the Early Infancy Lab of the University of Ferrara in the effort of filling this gap, focusing on yawning in fetuses, preterm and full term neonates and infants.