So far the programme has shown how babies' brain change dramatically as they develop socially. Next the team put adults to the test to see how they are affected by a baby's cry. They rig the home of one-month-old Noah with cameras and watch to see how his parents react to his cries. Although they sleep through dogs barking and traffic noise, Noah's cry has them springing out of bed. In the baby lab, Dr Christine Parsons runs an experiment using the fairground game whackamole, to show how a baby's cry increases our reaction times, making us more efficient parents. It is because a baby's cry is like a biological alarm that taps straight into the amygdala in the brain - the fear response centre.    

Link to BBC where the programme will be available shortly after broadcast.

Contact:

Christine Parsons, Associate Professor, Dept. of Clinical Medicine and IMC