Identifying biomarkers and trajectories of executive functions and language development in the first 3 years of life: design, methods and initial findings of the Germina cohort study

This paper reports the methods and preliminary findings of Germina, an ongoing cohort study to identify biomarkers and trajectories of executive functions and language development in the first 3 years of life. 557 mother-infant dyads (mean age of mothers 33.7 years, 65.2% white, 48.7% male infants) have undergone baseline and are currently collecting data for other timepoints. A linear regression was used to predict baseline Bayley-III using scores derived from data-driven sparse partial least squares utilizing a multiple holdout framework of 15 domains. Significant associations were found between socioeconomic/demographic characteristics (B=0.29), epigenetics (B=0.11), EEG theta (B=0.14) and beta activity (B=0.11), and microbiome functional pathways (B=0.08) domains, and infant development, suggesting potential interventions to prevent impairments.