Charles A Nelson

Biographic Data

ID118154
NAMECharles A Nelson
GIVEN NAMESCharles A
FAMILY NAMENelson
SIGNATURENELSON C A
AFFILIATIONSBoston Children's Hospital
ORCID0000-0002-4723-247X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS81
TOTAL CITATIONS105
AUTHOR COUNT81
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1957
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX5

  • Exploring the social origins of attention and executive functions: A cultural perspective from parent–infant interactions.

    Ran Wei, Trevor Bissert et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2026

    Attention regulation is foundational to early development and underpins the emergence of executive function. The present study draws on the Learning by Observing and Pitching In framework to investigate how Bangladeshi parents in a resource-constrained urban community scaffold infants' attention and emerging executive function. To contextualize Bangladeshi parent-infant interactions, we included a descriptive comparison with families of mid-socio…

  • Biopsychosocial pathways from early adversity to depression: Potential mechanisms and implications for intervention

    Open AccessViviane Valdes, Hannah E Marshall et al.ARTICLEInternational Journal of…2026

    Early life adversity (ELA) has consistently been associated with the development of depressive symptoms and linked to comorbid psychiatric outcomes, greater disorder severity, slower rates of remission/recovery, and increased risk of suicidality. Existing research suggests that ELA has a dose-dependent association with depressive outcomes; however, a comprehensive review of the pathways that may underlie this association is needed to synthesize c…

  • Neural correlates of child temperament: The role of brain network connectivity in psychopathology risk

    Open AccessWanze Xie, Yiyi Wang et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2026

    BACKGROUND: Early temperament has been shown to predict socioemotional outcomes, but its neural correlates are not yet fully understood. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between early temperament and neuronal network functional connectivity (FC), and how these factors contribute to the risk of psychopathology. METHODS: Using a longitudinal cohort followed from infancy to age 7 (N = 749 collected at infancy), we assessed temp…

  • The development of electroencephalography microstates from infancy into middle childhood and their associations with behavior

    Open AccessCaroline Kelsey, Dashiell D Sacks et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2026

    Microstates reflect rapid changes in neural activity with specific scalp topographies. Microstates have been colloquially referred to as the "atoms of thought" and temporal properties of microstates are thought to be associated with mental health and cognition. However, little work has characterized the longitudinal developmental changes and associations with behavior across the infancy and middle childhood period. In this study, we examined deve…

  • Feasibility and acceptability of magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography for child neurodevelopmental research in rural Ethiopia

    Open AccessFirehiwot Workneh, Theresa I Chin et al.ARTICLEFrontiers in Public Health2025

    Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) are valuable tools for studying neuroanatomical and electrophysiological features of early brain development. Studies implementing neuroimaging tools in low- and middle-income countries are still rare, and there is limited data on the acceptability of such tools among rural communities. The present study explores the perceptions, feasibility, and acceptability of introd…

  • El mundo que teníamos y el mundo que queríamos. Claves para pensar la experiencia de Jóvenes en Resistencia Alternativa (JRA) y su apuesta de horizontalidad y autonomía urbana

    Open AccessMina Lorena Navarro Trujillo, Charles A Nelson et al.ARTICLEMemorias2025

    Jóvenes en Resistencia Alternativa (JRA) fue una organización política-estudiantil mixta de Ciudad de México que nació en 2003 y se disolvió en 2019. Teniendo al neozapatismo, a los centros sociales autónomos europeos y al autonomismo argentino como principales fuentes de inspiración, JRA articuló y convocó a un número importante de estudiantes universitarios al activismo no electoral, tanto fuera como dentro de las universidades de las cuales pr…

  • Physical and neurophysiological maturation associated with ADHD among previously institutionalized children: A randomized controlled trial

    Open AccessAnne Arnett, Martín Antúnez et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2025

    BACKGROUND: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental outcome among children with a history of early institutional care. Prior research on institutionalized children suggested that accelerated physical growth in childhood is a risk factor for ADHD outcomes. METHODS: The current study examined physical and neurophysiological growth trajectories among institutionalized children randomized to foster care treatmen…

  • EEG frontal alpha asymmetry mediates the association between maternal and child internalizing symptoms in childhood

    Open AccessDashiell D Sacks, Yiyi Wang et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2025

    BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depression are highly prevalent in youth and can cause significant distress and functional impairment. The presence of maternal anxiety and depression are well-established risk factors for child internalizing psychopathology, yet the responsible mechanisms linking the two remain unclear. METHODS: We examined the potential mediating and moderating roles of EEG frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) in the intergenerational transmiss…

  • The association between temperament and polygenic score for psychopathology from infancy to middle childhood

    Open AccessEloise Freitag, Caroline Kelsey et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2025

    BACKGROUND: Certain temperament characteristics, such as low effortful control and high negative affectivity, are linked to an elevated likelihood for later psychopathology. Although genetic vulnerability has been associated with a number of psychiatric conditions, little work has examined the genetic architecture underlying temperament or the genetic overlap between early temperament profiles and later mental health outcomes. The present study e…

  • Caregiving stress and maternal mental health during the Covid‐19 pandemic

    Open AccessKelsey M Quigley, Rachel Kwon et al.ARTICLEFamily Process2025

    It has now been extensively documented that parental mental health has deteriorated since the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Although pandemic‐related stress has been widespread, parents faced the unique challenge of navigating remote schooling. Parental oversight of children's education, loss of access to school supportive resources, and the challenges of remote learning may have been most problematic for parents of children with or at elev…

  • Longitudinal interactions between maternal depression symptoms and familial stressful life events on child anxiety symptoms at 5 years of age

    Open AccessViviane Valdes, Linda W Craighead et al.ARTICLEInfancy2025

    In the current study we identified salient parental factors for child anxiety symptoms by considering the role of stressful life events, maternal anxiety symptoms, maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal neuroticism. Families ( N = 399) in an urban area in the United States were participants in a longitudinal study beginning in infancy. Mothers completed measures of stressful life events (Revised Life Events Questionnaire at all visits), mater…

  • Exploring background aperiodic electroencephalography (EEG) activity in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project

    Open AccessMartín Antúnez, Marco McSweeney et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2025

    Aperiodic activity is a background arrhythmic component of electroencephalogram (EEG) that is present in the power spectrum and characterized by an aperiodic offset and an aperiodic exponent. These components have been proposed as a marker of brain maturation, reflecting alterations in excitatory-inhibitory (E:I) balance and exhibiting developmental changes over time. Currently, there is limited understanding regarding how aperiodic activity chan…

  • Adaptive functioning at age 18 years following severe early deprivation: Results of a randomized controlled trial

    Open AccessMegan M Hare, Kathryn L Humphreys et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2025

    In the present study, we examined adaptive functioning data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care following exposure to severe psychosocial deprivation. Adaptive functioning refers to the skills individuals need to meet age-appropriate social and practical demands required for independent functioning. These abilities are essential for successful navigati…

  • Telomere Length and Change Among Infants Growing up in Low‐ to Mid‐Income Households

    Open AccessGeorgia F Celestin, Lara J Pierce et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychobiology2025References: 57

    Telomere biology is a molecular mechanism that may underlie relationships between stress and health outcomes and has been shown to vary across racial and ethnic groups. Telomere length may also be susceptible to the deleterious impacts of stress during early development. However, limited research has examined these associations in diverse samples using repeated measures in infancy. This study assessed longitudinal change in telomere length across…

  • Longitudinal Trajectories of Aperiodic EEG Activity in Early to Middle Childhood

    Open AccessDashiell D Sacks, Viviane Valdes et al.ARTICLEChild Development2025References: 38

    Aperiodic electroencephalography (EEG) activity is hypothesized to index biological mechanisms that underpin brain functioning. This longitudinal study characterized the developmental trajectories of the aperiodic slope (i.e., aperiodic exponent) and offset from infancy to 7 years of age in a US community sample (N = 391, 46.5% female, predominantly White; data collection 2013-2023). The study further examined whether differential developmental t…

  • EEG Theta Power in Bangladeshi Children: Associations With Early Experiences and Cognitive Outcomes

    Open AccessEileen F Sullivan, Ran Wei et al.ARTICLEChild Development2025References: 41

    Identifying the neural processes that underlie the association between children's early adverse experiences and cognitive development could inform more effective intervention strategies. The goal of the current study (data collected 2015–2021) was to examine relations among early experiences at 6 months, electroencephalography (EEG) theta power at 6 months and 2 years, and cognitive outcomes at 5 years in Bangladeshi children (N = 115; 67 females…

  • Annual Research Review: Early intervention viewed through the lens of developmental neuroscience

    Open AccessCharles A Nelson, Eileen F Sullivan et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2024

    The overarching goal of this paper is to examine the efficacy of early intervention when viewed through the lens of developmental neuroscience. We begin by briefly summarizing neural development from conception through the first few postnatal years. We emphasize the role of experience during the postnatal period, and consistent with decades of research on critical periods, we argue that experience can represent both a period of opportunity and a …

  • Exploration of auditory statistical learning, socioeconomic status, and language outcomes in Bangladeshi children: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

    Open AccessEileen F Sullivan, Laura Pirazzoli et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2024

    Auditory statistical learning, or the ability to detect statistical regularities in continuously presented stimuli, is thought to be one element that underlies language acquisition. Prior studies have uncovered behavioral and neural correlates of statistical learning, yet additional work is needed from low- and middle-income countries to explore whether statistical learning varies across cultures or underlies associations often found between soci…

  • Associations among temperament characteristics and telomere length and attrition rate in early childhood

    Open AccessMichelle Bosquet Enlow, Immaculata De Vivo et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology2024

    There is growing interest in telomere length as an indicator of current and future health. Although early childhood is a period of rapid telomere attrition, little is known about the factors that influence telomere biology during this time. Adult research suggests that telomere length is influenced by psychological characteristics. This study's goal was to test associations among repeated measures of temperament and telomere length in a community…

  • Family-based care buffers the stress sensitizing effect of early deprivation on executive functioning difficulties in adolescence

    Open AccessM Wade, Katie A Mclaughlin et al.ARTICLEChild Development2023

    We examined whether family care following early-life deprivation buffered the association between stressful life events (SLEs) and executive functioning (EF) in adolescence. In early childhood, 136 institutionally reared children were randomly assigned to foster care or care-as-usual; 72 never-institutionalized children served as a comparison group. At age 16 years, adolescents (n = 143; 54% female; 67.1% Romanian) self-reported recent SLEs, comp…

  • Frontal asymmetry assessed in infancy using functional near-infrared spectroscopy is associated with emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood

    Open AccessCaroline Kelsey, Margaret A Modico et al.ARTICLEChild Development2023

    Frontal asymmetry (FA), the difference in brain activity between the left versus right frontal areas, is thought to reflect approach versus avoidance motivation. This study (2012–2021) used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate if infant (Mage = 7.63 months; N = 90; n = 48 male; n = 75 White) FA in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex relates to psychopathology in later childhood (Mage = 62.05 months). Greater right FA to happy faces…

  • Exploratory study evaluating the relationships between perinatal adversity, oxidative stress, and infant neurodevelopment across the first year of life

    Open AccessKameelah Gateau, Lisa Schlueter et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2023

    Early childhood adversity increases risk for negative lifelong impacts on health and wellbeing. Identifying the risk factors and the associated biological adaptations early in life is critical to develop scalable early screening tools and interventions. Currently, there are limited, reliable early childhood adversity measures that can be deployed prospectively, at scale, to assess risk in pediatric settings. The goal of this two-site longitudinal…

  • A biomarker discovery framework for childhood anxiety

    Open AccessWilliam J Bosl, Michelle Bosquet Enlow et al.ARTICLEFrontiers in Psychiatry2023

    This study suggests that latent factors extracted from EEG recordings in childhood are promising candidate biomarkers for anxiety and for externalizing disorders if chosen at appropriate ages

  • Infants’ neural responses to emotional faces are related to maternal anxiety

    Open AccessLindsay C Bowman, Sarah A McCormick et al.ARTICLEJournal of Child Psychology and…2022

    BACKGROUND: Postnatal maternal anxiety is common (estimates as high as 40% prevalence) and is associated with altered mother-infant interactions (e.g., reduced maternal emotional expression and engagement). Neural circuitry supporting infants' face and emotion processing develops in their first year. Thus, early exposure to maternal anxiety may impact infants' developing understanding of emotional displays. We examine whether maternal anxiety is …

  • Temperament and psychopathology: The “community” to which you belong matters

    Open AccessWanze Xie, Joe Bathelt et al.ARTICLEChild Development2022

    We utilized a community detection approach to longitudinally (a) identify distinct groups of children with common temperament profiles in infancy and at 2 and 3 years of age and (b) determine whether co-occurrence of certain temperament traits may be early predictors of internalizing problems at 5 years of age. Seven hundred and seventy-four infants (360 girls; 88.6% White, 9.8% Hispanic, and 1.6% other races) were recruited from the Boston area.…