2023 Brain Week: "What do babies think about?" Event on March 18 in the CIS

The 25th edition of Brain Awareness Week will take place from March 13 to 19, 2023. To mark the occasion, the Institut Pasteur is organizing an in-person round table and debate open to the public on the theme of brain development. The event, entitled "What do babies think about?", will take place on the Paris campus on March 18, 2023, from 2 to 5pm in the CIS.

We always marvel as we watch them grow, discover the world day by day and try to understand it. But how much do we know – or think we know – about what babies know? How do they think, and what do they think about? How do they perceive us? What would they like to say to us? We would give anything sometimes to know what they are feeling, what their expectations are, how they see the world, how they explore it and make sense of it.

Research on this topic, which has grown rapidly over the past 30 years, has revealed that babies know much more than we tend to imagine. From a very early age, they can quantify small numbers of objects, they are aware of their body, they imitate us, discern our expectations, evaluate and predict our intentions, show empathy, acquire a sense of knowledge, are surprised at the unpredictability of things, feel uncertainty, and make use of this uncertainty to come up with multiple theories and revise and consolidate their knowledge. This cognitive precociousness is driven by the significant attentional resources they demonstrate, by their remarkable curiosity, their desire to learn and understand the world around them. Alongside the discovery of these fundamental, fascinating aspects that underpin the way in which newborn babies discover and build their world, at a clinical level we are developing more precise tools and diagnostic techniques for the early identification of any obstacles, delays to development and behavioral disorders that may emerge and the means of addressing them.

The aim of this conference is to bring together renowned specialists in pediatrics, child psychiatry, and developmental psychology in newborns and infants to respond to these multiple questions and provide a comprehensive picture of the latest knowledge about the inner and sometimes still secret lives of babies. It is aimed at parents and also managers and practitioners at childcare facilities and anyone working in education who has the task, for each new generation, of expanding, fostering and structuring the socio-cognitive resources of young children who have been thinking about the world around them since they were babies.

Speakers :

Thomas Bourgeron
Lauriane Cabrera
Karine Durand
Alain Perez

The event is free but prior registration is required.

Find out more (in French)