research papers on human development

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• Published: 29 July 2021

The evolution of our understanding of human development over the last 10 years

• Ali H. Brivanlou   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1761-280X 1 &
• Norbert Gleicher   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0202-4167 2 , 3 , 4  

Nature Communications volume  12 , Article number:  4615 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Developmental biology
• Embryogenesis

As it fulfills an irresistible need to understand our own origins, research on human development occupies a unique niche in scientific and medical research. In this Comment, we explore the progress in our understanding of human development over the past 10 years. The focus is on basic research, clinical applications, and ethical considerations.

What basic research has taught us about human development

Over the last decade, progress in understanding our own development was mostly driven by the emergence and combination of remarkable new technologies. New molecular biology tools such as single-cell RNA-sequencing (sc-RNA-seq) unveiled the earliest genetic signature of the three cell lineages of the human blastocyst and allowed for the discovery of human-specific signatures 1 , 2 , 3 . CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing has offered further access to in vitro functional studies in human blastocysts 4 . However, as we discuss below, an ethical line was crossed when a group claimed that genetically modified human embryos had been transferred, leading to births 5 when neither public opinion nor a consensus within the scientific community had been reached regarding whether crossing the germline in in vitro fertilization (IVF) was safe and ethically acceptable.

On the embryology side, the development of an in vitro attachment platform for human blastocysts offered a first glance into post-implantation events up to 12 days 1 , 3 , 5 , 6 . This paved the way for several important discoveries, including the observation that the human embryo can self-organize to generate embryonic and extraembryonic germ layers, yolk sac, and amniotic cavities in the absence of maternal influences 5 , 6 ; and the presence of a transient embryonic tissue of trophectodermal lineage, adjacent to the yolk sac, therefore named, yolk-sac trophectoderm ( ysTE ) 5 . The presence of these seemingly human-specific populations was independently confirmed by sc-RNA-seq 1 .

The marriage of stem cell biology with bioengineering gave birth to the field of synthetic embryology 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 . This technology uses human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) cultured on geometrically confined micropatterned substrates to generate 2D in vitro models of human conceptuses, such as models of the gastrula ( gastruloids ) 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , or parts of the embryo, such as cerebroids and neuruloids 14 . Thousands of nearly identical self-organizing human embryonic structures allow for standardization and reproducibility, which cannot be achieved in standard organoid structures 15 . Cells within these structures can be tracked and quantified in real time with sub-cellular resolution, using sophisticated quantification code, including artificial intelligence 14 .

Human gastruloids induce formation of the primitive streak and have enabled the deciphering of the molecular network underlying gastrulation—the most crucial moment of our lives 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 . 3D models of human epiblasts can spontaneously break axial symmetry, thus providing an assay for the elucidation of molecular events underlying the emergence of antero–posterior polarity 11 , 16 . A highly homogenous population of self-organizing 3D models of amniotic ectoderm-like cells can be obtained by combining microfluidic and microculture approaches 17 .

Finally, the development of interspecies chimeras provided the most stringent in vivo validation of human embryo models 9 , 10 , 18 . Unimaginable in human models, inter-species chimeras have become the next best choice to test whether hESC behavior in self-organizing gastruloids , as observed on microchips, would also occur in an embryonic environment 10 , 18 , 19 . Human/bird chimeras generated from transplanting human gastruloids into early chick embryos in ovo unexpectedly proved more efficient than previous methods 9 , 19 . They allowed for the observation of an entire self-organizing embryonic axis in bird eggs 9 . As birds are closer to dinosaurs than to humans, this high rate of success with these chimeras further suggested that these early patterning events must be highly conserved.

Translational clinical applications that arose from basic research

The past 10 years bore witness to significant clinical progress in reproductive medicine, often translated from basic research. Successful human uterus transplantation and the subsequent birth of healthy offspring was, for example, only achieved after years of meticulous laboratory work in animals 10 . Significant improvements in cryopreservation technology for human eggs and ovarian tissue were also preceded by research in model systems 10 , 20 . Practical clinical applications have been developed for women in need of cancer treatment that are toxic to ovaries. In these cases, oocytes and/or ovarian tissue can be cryopreserved for later use in fertility treatments once the patient is cured of her cancer 21 . This ever-evolving technology has already proven to result in live births, and has also become an integral part of routine infertility treatments with IVF, giving rise to the brand-new concept of fertility extension through egg-freezing.

Diagnostic technologies to assess retrieved eggs and preimplantation-stage embryos in the IVF process have been disappointing. For example, tracking extended embryo culture to blastocyst-stage with time-lapse imaging failed to improve embryo selection 22 . That chromosomal-abnormal embryos increase with maternal (but not paternal) age has been interpreted to mean that chromosomal abnormalities were a principal cause for lower implantation chances and higher miscarriage risks among older women. This assumption led to the rapidly growing utilization of chromosomal testing of human embryos prior to embryo transfer in a procedure recently renamed preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) 23 . The hypothesis behind PGT-A is to exclude chromosomal-abnormal embryos from the transfer, thereby improving implantation potentials of remaining euploid embryos.

Here too, clinical evidence was unable to confirm the hypothesis 24 . Moreover, basic research demonstrated a self-correction mechanism in mouse 25 and human embryos 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 that arose during embryogenesis that was cell lineage-specific to the embryonic cell lineage. In contrast, PGT-A biopsies are obtained from the extraembryonic-derived trophectoderm, rendering any diagnostic procedure at the blastocyst stage ineffective. In addition, mathematical modeling demonstrated that results from a single trophectoderm biopsy could not be extrapolated to the whole embryo 30 . Transfer of PGT-A “chromosomal-abnormal diagnosed embryos” has resulted in the births of over 400 chromosomal-normal offspring 20 , 21 .

In recent years, increasing attention has also been given to the quickly evolving understanding of how interdependent lifestyle and human fertility are 31 , 32 , 33 , including the influence of diet on the microbiome, as in many other areas of medicine.

The ethical significance of understanding human development

Whether in clinical medicine or in the research laboratory, human embryology has remained an ethical minefield, strongly influenced by socio-political and religious considerations. At the core of the controversy resides the special moral value of the human embryo, a subject that has come to the forefront again with the ascent of human embryonic stem cell research 34 . There is, however, little consensus as to how to answer a previously raised question: “ what is an embryo ?” 35 . The term pre-embryo, first introduced in 1986, was defined as the interval up to the appearance of the primitive streak, which marks biological individuation at ~14 days post-fertilization. This definition designated the period beyond 14 days as the time when a pre-embryo attains special moral status 36 , 37 . Paradoxically, the term pre-embryo has been replaced by the indiscriminate use of the term embryo, whether at preimplantation cleavage or blastocyst-stages or post-implantation before day 14. It was suggested that the distinction was important for ethical, moral, and biological relevance. The principal reason is simple: Until a pre-embryo becomes an embryo, there is no way of knowing whether implantation has taken place, whether a pregnancy is developing, whether there is a single pregnancy or twinning, or whether fertilization ended up in a benign (hydatidiform mole) or even in a malignant tumor (choriocarcinoma) 35 . Assigning advanced moral value to embryos at those early stages is, therefore, difficult to defend.

The past 10 years have witnessed innumerous ethical debates related to this subject, each with its own social, historical, and religious justifications, reflecting cultural diversities in human populations. Most are triggered by scientific breakthroughs. We summarize here the major ethical challenges preoccupying reproductive research and clinical practice.

We have already briefly referred to CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing. While the use of sc-RNA-seq to identify the molecular blueprint of human development has not elicited significant controversy, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing of human embryos has been a topic of intense discussions and is currently permissible only in vitro 38 . An alleged attempt in China of implanting human genome-edited embryos into the uterus supposedly led to two births (one a twin birth). Though widely discussed in the media, neither attempt was published in the medical literature, and therefore cannot be verified 5 , 38 .

The ethical debates surrounding the 14-day rule, quiescent since the early IVF days, experienced a rebirth that was prompted by in vitro human embryo attachment studies and the emergence of synthetic human embryos. Within this context, we note that self-organizing embryo models are nothing more than cells in culture and are certainly not embryos. Regardless of scientific merits, in the U.S., the National Institutes of Health (NIH) currently prohibits the use of public funds for the study of synthetic embryos “for ethical reasons”. After being under an NIH moratorium for more than a year, research on chimeras is now, however, again permitted, though human/non-human primate chimeras remain prohibited.

These ongoing ethical debates mostly also mirror those surrounding the lack of U.S. federal funding for clinical IVF and related research, as well as hESCs-derived model embryos. In this context, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM)’s Ethics in Embryo Research Task Force recently made an important statement: “ Scientific research using human embryos advances human health and provides vital insights into reproduction and disease ” 39 .

Provided certain guidelines and safeguards are followed, research with already existing embryos or embryos specifically produced for research should be ethically acceptable as a means of obtaining new knowledge that may benefit human health. ASRM also pointed out that scientists and society must understand which research questions necessitate the use of human embryos.

It is gratifying to acknowledge the history and vitality of ongoing debates, especially since they increasingly mimic decision-making processes in the medical field. These debates are meant to be based on cost-benefit and/or risk-benefit assessments. These debates will, unquestionably, continue and, indeed, considering that every intervention has consequences, must be decided based on careful considerations, including all relevant stakeholders and all parts of society.

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Acknowledgements

We like to thank Min Yang, Jean Marx Santel, Adam Souza, and Amir Brivanlou, for data gathering and critical reading of the manuscript, and constructive criticism.

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A.H.B. and N.G. are co-founders of OvaNova Inc. A.H.B. is a co-founder of Rumi Scientific Inc.

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Brivanlou, A.H., Gleicher, N. The evolution of our understanding of human development over the last 10 years. Nat Commun 12 , 4615 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24793-3

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Olivier Pourquié; Human development: a Special Issue. Development 15 September 2015; 142 (18): 3071–3072. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.129767

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In September 2014, Development organised a four-day workshop titled ‘From Stem Cells to Human Development’. In planning this meeting, we sought to fill what we saw as a gap in the meeting calendar – a way of bringing together a diverse cross-section of researchers with a common interest in using the rapidly developing tools of stem cell biology, genetic engineering and genomic analysis to understand human development (for a review of the meeting, see Medvinsky and Livesey, 2015 ). The enthusiasm with which this workshop was met, from invited speakers and registered participants alike, confirmed our view that we are now in a period in which significant inroads into understanding human development will be made. With our ever-improving ability to model tissue development in vitro and to manipulate the human genome (and epigenome), we are now in a position to analyse human organogenesis and to understand how it differs from that in other model organisms – and hence to start to probe the developmental biology underlying the evolution of our species.

As we wrote in an editorial in January, “The human development field represents an essential growth area for the developmental biology community, and Development is keen to play an active role in supporting and inspiring it” ( Pourquié et al., 2015 ). This Special Issue celebrates that aim – bringing together a collection of Reviews and Research Articles that directly address a broad range of topics in human developmental biology: from the earliest stages of human development to cellular ageing and degeneration, and from basic questions of how an organ is formed to ways in which we might translate this knowledge in the clinic. We are also supporting this initiative with a second ‘From Stem Cells to Human Development’ meeting, to be held in September 2016. More details on what should be a fantastic follow-up event can be found at http://workshops.biologists.com/from-stem-cells-to-human-development-2/ .

Studying human development is obviously a challenging endeavour, given the practical and ethical difficulties in working with human material. However, as discussed by Dianne Gerrelli and colleagues (2015) , there is a growing set of resources for researchers, including the Human Developmental Biology Resource (with which the authors are affiliated), which provides embryonic and foetal material and a range of valuable services. Maintaining and developing such resources will be essential as research on human development progresses.

Complementing work using human tissue, much of the research into human development relies on the generation and manipulation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) – either embryonic (hESCs) or induced (hiPSCs). There has, however, been much debate surrounding the pluripotent status of such hPSCs, particularly when compared with their mouse equivalents, as well as their in vivo counterparts. In their Review, Martin Pera and colleagues ( Davidson et al., 2015 ) discuss these controversies in the light of recent attempts to generate truly naïve hESCs. Kathy Niakan and co-workers are also interested in pluripotent states and human-mouse comparisons. In their Research Article ( Blakeley et al., 2015 ), they report single-cell RNA sequencing analyses of human and mouse preimplantation epiblasts, identifying important differences in the transcriptomes – and presumably therefore the development – of the early human and mouse embryo. One challenge in the field has been that functional assays for pluripotency of human cells are limited. To address this, Hiromitsu Nakauchi and colleagues ( Masaki et al., 2015 ) investigate whether generating inter-specific chimeras (using mouse epiblasts and PSCs from various species) might provide an alternative assay system. Also using mouse embryology to probe human development are Felipe Vilella and colleagues, who describe a microRNA secreted in human endometrial fluid that can promote mouse embryo adhesion during implantation ( Vilella et al., 2015 ), potentially identifying a novel route by which the efficiency of implantation can be modulated.

In another research paper investigating the role of microRNAs in human development ( Jönsson et al., 2015 ), Malin Parmar and co-workers analyse the microRNAs expressed in the human foetal brain and in PSC-derived neural progenitor cells, identifying region-specific microRNAs that probably influence neural cell fate. Generating a functional nervous system requires not only that cell fate is correctly defined, but also that appropriate connectivity is established and that neurons are properly supported by glia. Frederick Livesey and colleagues address the former problem in cortical neuron cultures ( Kirwan et al., 2015 ), while Motoharu Sakaue and Maya Sieber-Blum describe a protocol for generating supporting Schwann-like cells from human epidermal neural crest stem cells ( Sakaue and Sieber-Blum, 2015 ). Meanwhile, Ikuo Suzuki and Pierre Vanderhaeghen (2015) review various aspects of studying neural development using hPSCs and discuss how these approaches should allow us to gain insights into the evolution of the human brain.

Katie Pollard and Lucia Franchini's interests also lie in understanding human evolution, but from a genomic perspective. Their Review ( Franchini and Pollard, 2015 ) discusses how we can combine sequencing information with functional genomics and stem cell biology to identify and characterise changes in the human genome that might have led to human-specific developmental traits. They highlight the importance of appropriate experimental systems – not only model organisms but also through human stem cells and organoids – in which to test the function of human-specific genomic features. The ability to model not only cellular differentiation but also tissue formation in a dish constitutes a major breakthrough in the field over the past decade. Meritxell Huch and Bon-Kyoung Koo review the latest advances in generating endodermal organoids from both embryonic and adult stem cells ( Huch and Koo, 2015 ) and provide a perspective on where this field is heading. The Review by Neil Hanley and colleagues ( Jennings et al., 2015 ), while also focussing on endoderm development – in this case, pancreas – provides a complementary viewpoint, discussing what is known about human pancreas development in vivo and how these insights translate into our ability to generate β-cells in vitro .

Turning to other organs, Christine Mummery and Charles Murry and their colleagues both focus on heart development. Mummery's work ( van den Berg et al., 2015 ) characterises the transcriptome of the human foetal heart and compares it with the RNA profile of PSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Meanwhile, Murry's study ( Palpant et al., 2015 ) provides insights into how cardiomyocytes are specified in a hESC system. The final Research Article of this issue returns to the topic of organoid formation, this time the mammary gland. Christina Scheel and co-workers ( Linnemann et al., 2015 ) present an organoid system that allows the regenerative potential and morphogenetic dynamics of mammary epithelial cells to be studied.

Although understanding human development is an important goal in itself, the translational potential of this field is clear: if we can grow human tissues in vitro , we can use these to model disease, to test potential drugs and to develop cell therapies. Two Spotlights in this issue discuss these aspects of the field. Scott Thies and Charles Murry (2015) present some of the most promising preclinical data and clinical trials of stem cell therapies, while Elsa Vera and Lorenz Studer (2015) highlight a potential problem with using stem cell-derived models in disease research: both hESCs and hiPSCs are ‘young’ cells, whereas many diseases – particularly neurodegenerative disorders – afflict the old. Although these articles stray from the classic scope of a developmental biology journal, we hope that they illustrate the continuum of both the field, from basic understanding of developmental processes to their applications in regenerative therapy, and of development itself – from embryogenesis through post-embryonic maturation to ageing and decline.

We have a limited number of print copies of this Special Issue to give away to interested readers. If you would like one, please send an email to [email protected] with your mailing address. Whether in print or online, we hope you enjoy this Special Issue on Human Development. We see an exciting future for this field, and we want Development to be at the heart of it. We therefore encourage those of you working in this area to consider Development as a potential venue for the publication of your best work and we look forward to many more exciting human development papers finding their way into the pages of our journal.

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A Development of the Human Development Index

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• Volume 146 , pages 409–423, ( 2019 )

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This paper presents a variant human development index H. It resembles the human development index HDI, published annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme, but it is calibrated to reflect ‘development’ as evident in the actual progression of life expectancy, education and income shown over 1990–2017 by the people of the world as a whole. Index H uses the same dimensions and country statistics as the HDI but has no arbitrary parameters; all its parameters are derived from the statistics. The fundamental assumption is that humans overall choose how much education and work serves them best to improve health and income. Index H also facilitates comparison of a country’s progress over time, allowing for both ordinal and cardinal interpretations, with the world in year 2000 used as unit of development. Moreover, H provides explicit quantified valuation of health, safety and education policy. Just as the HDI has properly downplayed the importance of income in comparison with health and education, H discounts the income variable (Gross National Income), but even further.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Caroline Miller and one anonymous reviewer for meticulous attention to many details of this paper to clarify it for the readers, and to a second reviewer whose comments led to a deeper perspective on development as a measure, a process that varies with time, place and opportunity.

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Lind, N. A Development of the Human Development Index. Soc Indic Res 146 , 409–423 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02133-9

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Accepted : 14 May 2019

Published : 22 May 2019

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02133-9

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Challenges in developmental psychology, a focus on Sustainable Development

Peter klaver.

1 Centre for Research and Development, University of Teacher Education in Special Needs, Zurich, Switzerland

2 Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Katharina J. Rohlfing

3 Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

Introduction

Developmental psychology is traditionally of interdisciplinary nature with the aims to understand mechanisms of normative and individual changes and consistencies throughout the lifespan. The applied fields of developmental psychology target into health and educational sciences. The aims of developmental psychology cannot be reached without understanding and applying the underlying biological, senso-motoric, emotional, social, and cognitive processes that are intertwined with cultural context.

The field changes in dependence on internal and external factors. First, the increase in knowledge, in each of the associated areas can change the focus of interest in subfields or the whole field of developmental psychology. Second, methodological inventions can boost the development of certain subfields or the whole field of developmental psychology. Third, sudden changes in cultural context, by global events, such as strikingly demonstrated recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, affect the focus of interest in certain periods in life, or in interventions. Fourth, there is a solid claim for a bias in research on and from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) countries (Henrich et al., 2010 ), which affect inferences and impact from research in developmental psychology. Awareness toward the cultural context of research in developmental psychology, its limitations and generalizability, can change perspective and course of the field.

In the following Specialty Grand Challenge, we would like to sketch the most important challenges we observe within the field of developmental psychology, which are dependent on the above-mentioned areas of change: changes in knowledge and methodology, changes or bias in environment by global events and cultural context.

Aims of the Specialty Grand Challenge

One of the key challenges we observe in developmental psychology relate to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Agenda 2030 and the associated SDGs pose new challenges on science as a whole and as such on developmental psychology. The global goals to sustain the resources in the world's biosphere for future generations are balanced across the dimensions of social responsibility, ecological responsibility, and economic growth (United Nations Sustainable Development Group, 2019 ). Local or global actions at each of these dimensions can have an impact on the individual development and potentially on the normative development of people. Thus, they may affect individuals differently in childhood, youth, and adulthood. For example, youth in several countries have shown to take responsibility regarding SDGs to engage against climate change, against poverty, diversity, human rights, and democracy (Plan International UK, 2018 ), while Education for Sustainable Development is part of the curriculum in many countries. The development of youth may be affected alone by the responsibility they take, and the social changes they achieve may affect development of future generations. Participating more actively in a society and being encouraged by children's rights (UNICEF), children might require more support in developing skills that pertains to engagement in active citizenship from early on. The global context and youth's participation put novel requirements on youth's and children's care, caregivers as well as education.

Further, fast economic growth in urban areas as well as political conflicts can lead to migration waves toward these areas, which provides an impact on the health and education infrastructure in both rural and urban areas, which may in turn affect vulnerable populations disproportionally, and particularly children, elderly, and individuals with disabilities. Observations of the kind has been observed in several countries (Jampaklay et al., 2016 ; Holecki et al., 2020 ; Martín-Cano et al., 2020 ).

Actions relating to SDGs

In our view, SDGs require actions in the field of developmental psychology regarding relevant methodologies and topics. We observe two windows of opportunity to take action on the impact of SDGs on developmental psychology. First, global developments in methodology of research, particularly Open Science and Open Research Data help to access, merge, and analyze data in understanding emotion, cognition, and social dynamics in development within cultural context. These approaches initiate new discoveries but require an understanding of the technological functions and their limitations. Second, digitalization has a global impact on the use of knowledge and skills in social, health, and educational systems, which induces challenges and boosts research in the field of developmental psychology.

Regarding the methodologies, we recommend for three levels of actions. First, research in developmental psychology needs to adopt to the principles of Open Science. The movement of Open Science has been seen as an important step toward managing resources at a global scale. Open Access of publications as implemented by Frontiers and other publishers, increases access to knowledge across the globe. However, sharing data by implementing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles on Open Research Data (ORD) would allow researchers across the globe to reuse data and connect own data to a larger pool of data than ever before. This could increase validation of evidence across different cultural contexts and could diversify and generalize theories on development. Simultaneously, methods can be further developed to adjust to novel contextual circumstances. Furthermore, a reuse of material, measures, procedures, and data contributes to more transparency and works against data loss, fosters collaborations, and generates reproducible workflows (Klein et al., 2018 ). With these methods, key issues relating to development and SDGs can be more easily studied, because contextual differences can be identified in larger datasets. Currently, Frontiers does not have a policy regarding ORD, but in our view, we could and should commit to such a policy within our research communities.

Second, research in developmental psychology should be committed to international standards regarding the adoption of research designs, conducting research, reporting and critical appraisal standards. The EQUATOR network currently provides 529 reporting guidelines for all types of research, which are relevant for social sciences and medicine, such as PRISMA (Page et al., 2021 ). Research communities, for example in neuroscience and medicine, have increased awareness toward such standards and thereby increased the quality of research (O'Brien et al., 2014 ; Song et al., 2017 ). It is important that research communities commit themselves toward such standards to increase reproducibility, transparency, and sustainability of research across the globe. In addition to reporting standards, the reviewing standards should be transparent and compliant with the guidelines. Several valuable critical appraisal tools have been developed, such as CASP or JBI checklists, which can support and standardize reviewing processes. By taking such standards more seriously, and with a higher commitment to them, globally, the rigor in addressing key questions relating to development can be pushed forward, and a sustainable knowledge base can be acquired.

Third, we observe strong innovations and methodological developments in areas, which now affect the field of developmental psychology. It will be important to increase awareness about applying technologies for specific solutions and specific contexts. A recent Research Topic on empirical research at a distance provides a good example of putting together novel and rapid methodical developments driven by COVID-19 pandemic but discussing their limitations thoroughly (Tsuji et al., 2022 ). In our view, it is important for novel methods to be presented in a comprehensive manner to provide informative access not only to procedures but also to its purposes and shortcomings. For this, Frontiers offers formats that might be used more often: Data Report, Technology and Code, Study Protocol, but also Brief Research Report could be used to introduce a technologically innovative method to describe novel possibilities of analysis. It should then involve a reflection about the used technology regarding ethics and privacy, its advantages, and disadvantages by addressing tradeoffs, for example between real world behaviors and in-lab controls. Examples of such technologies, involve techniques to record high resolution spatial and temporal data in more realistic settings such as Real-Time response measurements (Waldvogel and Metz, 2020 ), dyads in Experience Sampling Methods (Xia et al., 2022 ), Near Field Communication (Lorusso et al., 2018 ), Google Trends Research (Jun et al., 2018 ; Mavragani et al., 2018 ), and hyperscanning EEG (Kayhan et al., 2022 ). A debate on the use of these techniques may provide a window of opportunity for global research on development and SDGs.

Regarding topics, we observe a strong impact of digitalization on health and education systems. Health issues have become a global phenomenon. The way in which people at different stages during the life span have access to health care, receive information on health risks and preventions, and are at risk to health problems is not evenly distributed. Industrial pollution, access to nutrients, eating habits, digital literacy and consumption, access to information depend on societal, technological, and climate changes. These potential risk and resources can affect fetal, early development and parenting, as well as later periods in life. The increasing knowledge about the mechanisms and the more widespread possibilities to observe changes longitudinally in several areas around the world lead to a more detailed understanding of the development of health risks and the effect of interventions during life span. In our view, it is important that the knowledge about health risks at all ages and heterogeneous populations is well-documented and (digitally) accessible for use by professional health practitioners.

Along similar lines, we observe that education undergoes changes depending on technological development, particularly digital information technology. Access to information and knowledge about education governance, access to education during political, societal and climate change can all affect the way in which children develop and the way in which communities and families are able to support the development of children. The current access to larger datasets has the potential to facilitate research about the psychological development on these topics. We therefore encourage the research on human development, health, and education specifically concerned with the influence of social and technological change in dynamic cultural contexts.

The main challenges that we observe are related to the global movements in science and society, which affect the course that developmental psychology takes. In the past, developmental psychology has been dominated by European and North American scientists, followed by important research from Japan (Norimatsu, 2018 ). Now, researchers from an increasing number of countries across the world, but particularly China deliver important insights into the field of developmental psychology. Further, the Agenda 2030, the global issues relating to health and education, the Open Science movement, the increasing knowledge about developmental psychology from other counties, the ability to merge greater datasets provide the possibility to understand development at a different level. Our view is indeed in line with these developments, first because we see a chance that normative and individual changes in development can be better understood at both a global and local level. Second, because we trust that applied scientists can address that knowledge. Their task is to improve, for example, health care, health risk prevention and education in cooperation with professionals and providers of social support.

Nevertheless, we are aware of the subjective nature of our view. The foundation of it was mainly based on the set of Research Topics that we evaluate at the Frontiers in Psychology Specialty Section Developmental Psychology, the manuscript we receive in our role as Section Chief Editors, as well as our role we have as professionals at our universities and the research communities we work in. We are also aware of the diversity of ethical and cultural values, which drives our vision of research on developmental psychology and the visions of all researchers in the field. The hope that shared values on the necessity to continue research on developmental psychology in the light of Sustainable Development remains.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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• First Look into Human Development in United Arab Emirates The Prime Minister of the UAE is in charge of all activities of the government. The UAE has a diverse and multicultural society and the influence of Islam is evident in its development.
• Can Only Democracies Enhance “Human Development”?
• Can Relationships Affect Human Development?
• Does Diversity Impair Human Development?
• Does Economic Freedom Promote Human Development?
• Does Global Fertility and Cultural Transition Affect Human Development?
• Does Human Development Index Provide Rational Development Rankings?
• Does Human Development Influence Women’s Labor Force Participation Rate?
• Does Infrastructure Affect Human Development?
• Does Political Competition Influence Human Development?
• Does the World Bank Have an Impact on the Human Development of the Poorest Countries?
• How Does Culture Affect Human Development?
• How Does Eye Development Affect Human Development?
• How Should Human Development Research Inform Educational?
• How Nature and Nurture Affect Human Development?
• How Psychologists Integrate the Study of Human Development With Theories?
• How Are Relationships Important for Human Development and Growth?
• How Do Theories and Perspectives Inform Our Thinking About Human Development?
• What Can Psychology Teach Us About Human Development?
• What Does the Human Development Index Tell Us About Convergence?
• What Drives Human Development in Nigeria?
• What Makes the Study of Human Development a Science?
• Education and Human Development: How Much Do Parents Matter?
• How Human Development During Trauma and Does Spirituality Help?
• Human Development Index: Are Developing Countries Misclassified?
• What Are the Five Main Stages of Human Development?
• What Is the Importance of Human Development?
• What Is an Example of Human Development?
• What Are the Four Principles of Human Development?
• What Is the Meaning of Human Development?
• What Is the Most Important Aspect of Human Development?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 29). 88 Human Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/human-development-essay-topics/

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Enjoy a completely custom, expertly-written dissertation. Choose from hundreds of writers, all of whom are career specialists in your subject.

Top Human Development Topics for Research Paper

Human development is a field of study that is an offshoot of psychology. It focuses on the psychology and biological evolution of man from infancy to adulthood. Human development is dubbed as psychology development in some schools. It is a comprehensive course of study and involves a handful of researches.

Writing a research paper in human development like every other science course can be tedious. However, research writing challenges are just a step away from being solved when you already have your topic.

Not just any topic though, having the best of topics is equally important. The topic chosen must be relevant and researchable. We have compiled some human growth and development topics you can consider.

How to Get Human Development Paper With Ease

Writing a research paper is not always an easy task, even when writing is your hobby. It requires some systematic steps: topic selection, research activity, analysis, and paper writing. All of these might be a great deal for a student involved in a lot of activities.

Your responsibility becomes more straightforward when you have got the best topic related to human development. Hence, you can brainstorm to gather ideas needed for writing. However, if this still seems to you as a big deal, you can seek the help of professional writers who help with “ write my thesis “, “write my paper” requests. Likewise, you can make use of assignment writing services that can be of help.

Good Research Topics on Human Development in Psychology

Human development and human psychology are two inseparable entities. Writing a research paper on one might imply writing on the other. We have compiled human growth and development research topics related to psychology to aid easy research paper writing. They are as follows;

• Cartoons and animation: Roles and impact in children learning and unlearning
• Impact of child abuse on the cognitive ability of a child
• Research on the connection of sleeping disorders and mental illness
• Research on the psychology of the aging process
• Effect of horror movies and violent video games on children’s development

Human Development Research Topics in Philosophy

Human development students might be required to research as it relates to philosophy. Reasoning is part of human life. As such, humans are not out of place if your research is tailored towards philosophy. These are human growth and development research paper topics you may consider;

• Research on the use of social media and its impact on human behavior and upsurge in case of violence
• Genius: What the term means, and are they made or born?
• Research on the definition and the implication of mood-freezing
• The role of color in human reasoning and its ability to enhance a human’s mood
• The role of good parenting and child upbringing in curbing serial killing

Some Current Human Growth and Development Topics

Human development has to do with human behavior. Therefore, as man evolves, there are always new things to research and talk about. You might need to focus your research on trending and current events. The following are human development paper topics you can lay your hands on;

• A study on transgender and its rising campaign among the youth
• Study on the impact of stress and peer pressure on rising cases of depression among teenagers and students
• Research on the influence of sexuality on human physical health and mental health
• Swift personality change: Possibilities and factors responsible in this generation
• The roles of religion in spiritual and moral development in humans

Some Easy Human Growth and Development Research Topics

No doubt, human development is a broad field of study. At the same time, you can find some human development essay topics that are pretty easy. These are research topics that you can quickly develop without much stress. You find such topics below;

• Study on the function and dysfunction of the brain when someone is in love
• Research on how helpful yoga is in human growth and development
• Dementia: Causes, symptoms, and its remedies
• The role of divorce in the emotional and behavioral development of a child
• Introversiveness: Advantage, disadvantage, and general evaluation

Human Lifespan Development Paper Topics

Human development encompasses human life from birth to death. Your research paper might have to deal with the human lifespan. The following are research topics for human development as it relates to lifespan;

• Research on the relationship between psychology and aging.
• Is it possible to have an abnormal aging process, and what are the factors responsible?
• Controlling depression and anxiousness about death
• Research on the phases of human growth and development.
• Study on coping mechanisms and managing loneliness through the human lifespan

Human Development Research Paper Topics in Sociology

Society is made up of humans. Hence you can not separate human development and sociology. Studying human development might imply a study of society. It is vital to have some research paper topics and human development thesis topics in sociology.

• Racism: Effects on the society and the factors responsible for it
• Study on gender roles in society
• Homophobia: Definition, psychological aspect, and its effect on society
• Research on eliminating gender discrimination and enhancing gender equality
• Bullying and its effect on the social interaction of a child in high school or colleges

Human Development Topics in Biology

You can find some human development topics as it relates to biology. Perhaps you need some human resources development thesis topics about biology. Some of such topics are;

• The relationship between human physical growth and mental growth
• Happiness as a genetic condition: Exploration using biological and psychological constructs
• Research on prenatal memory and child choices while growing.
• The impact of maternal stress in pregnancy on a child’s cognitive ability
• Research on hormones responsible for growth, emotion, and aging in humans

Education Topics on Human Development

Writing a research paper might be for education. Generally, every research paper is expected to educate the reader. For the sake of education, the following are human growth and development research paper topics you may want to consider;

• Autism in human psychology.
• Memory loss: Causes and when does it happen in the human development phase?
• Speech disorder and cognitive development in kids: The relationship and the resultant effects
• Research on the possibility of recovering memory loss.
• What is attention span, and how does it affect children’s cognitive behavior?

Writing a human development research paper can be hard at first. You will find it easier when you have the best research topic. The next step is to brainstorm ideas necessary to develop your arguments.

Above are human development topics as it relates to many other fields. As such, it is safe to say you have taken a step toward getting a good grade. However, you can get professional help to increase your chances of getting good grades.

At our reputable writing service, we understand the challenges that come with crafting a thesis in the field of human development. That’s why we’re here to offer you expert assistance to help you write your thesis. Our team of experienced writers specializes in human development topics, equipped with in-depth knowledge and a thorough understanding of the subject. When you reach out to us and say, “ Help me write my thesis ” we are ready to guide you through the entire process.

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AI Index Report

Welcome to the seventh edition of the AI Index report. The 2024 Index is our most comprehensive to date and arrives at an important moment when AI’s influence on society has never been more pronounced. This year, we have broadened our scope to more extensively cover essential trends such as technical advancements in AI, public perceptions of the technology, and the geopolitical dynamics surrounding its development. Featuring more original data than ever before, this edition introduces new estimates on AI training costs, detailed analyses of the responsible AI landscape, and an entirely new chapter dedicated to AI’s impact on science and medicine.

Read the 2024 AI Index Report

The AI Index report tracks, collates, distills, and visualizes data related to artificial intelligence (AI). Our mission is to provide unbiased, rigorously vetted, broadly sourced data in order for policymakers, researchers, executives, journalists, and the general public to develop a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the complex field of AI.

The AI Index is recognized globally as one of the most credible and authoritative sources for data and insights on artificial intelligence. Previous editions have been cited in major newspapers, including the The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The Guardian, have amassed hundreds of academic citations, and been referenced by high-level policymakers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, among other places. This year’s edition surpasses all previous ones in size, scale, and scope, reflecting the growing significance that AI is coming to hold in all of our lives.

Steering Committee Co-Directors

Ray Perrault

Steering committee members.

Erik Brynjolfsson

John Etchemendy

Katrina Ligett

Terah Lyons

James Manyika

Juan Carlos Niebles

Vanessa Parli

Yoav Shoham

Russell Wald

Staff members.

Loredana Fattorini

Nestor Maslej

Letter from the co-directors.

A decade ago, the best AI systems in the world were unable to classify objects in images at a human level. AI struggled with language comprehension and could not solve math problems. Today, AI systems routinely exceed human performance on standard benchmarks.

Progress accelerated in 2023. New state-of-the-art systems like GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude 3 are impressively multimodal: They can generate fluent text in dozens of languages, process audio, and even explain memes. As AI has improved, it has increasingly forced its way into our lives. Companies are racing to build AI-based products, and AI is increasingly being used by the general public. But current AI technology still has significant problems. It cannot reliably deal with facts, perform complex reasoning, or explain its conclusions.

AI faces two interrelated futures. First, technology continues to improve and is increasingly used, having major consequences for productivity and employment. It can be put to both good and bad uses. In the second future, the adoption of AI is constrained by the limitations of the technology. Regardless of which future unfolds, governments are increasingly concerned. They are stepping in to encourage the upside, such as funding university R&D and incentivizing private investment. Governments are also aiming to manage the potential downsides, such as impacts on employment, privacy concerns, misinformation, and intellectual property rights.

As AI rapidly evolves, the AI Index aims to help the AI community, policymakers, business leaders, journalists, and the general public navigate this complex landscape. It provides ongoing, objective snapshots tracking several key areas: technical progress in AI capabilities, the community and investments driving AI development and deployment, public opinion on current and potential future impacts, and policy measures taken to stimulate AI innovation while managing its risks and challenges. By comprehensively monitoring the AI ecosystem, the Index serves as an important resource for understanding this transformative technological force.

On the technical front, this year’s AI Index reports that the number of new large language models released worldwide in 2023 doubled over the previous year. Two-thirds were open-source, but the highest-performing models came from industry players with closed systems. Gemini Ultra became the first LLM to reach human-level performance on the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark; performance on the benchmark has improved by 15 percentage points since last year. Additionally, GPT-4 achieved an impressive 0.97 mean win rate score on the comprehensive Holistic Evaluation of Language Models (HELM) benchmark, which includes MMLU among other evaluations.

Although global private investment in AI decreased for the second consecutive year, investment in generative AI skyrocketed. More Fortune 500 earnings calls mentioned AI than ever before, and new studies show that AI tangibly boosts worker productivity. On the policymaking front, global mentions of AI in legislative proceedings have never been higher. U.S. regulators passed more AI-related regulations in 2023 than ever before. Still, many expressed concerns about AI’s ability to generate deepfakes and impact elections. The public became more aware of AI, and studies suggest that they responded with nervousness.

Ray Perrault Co-director, AI Index

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