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YOUTH & PLASTICITY / SPECIALIZATION [ A NEW BRAIN ]

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

YOUTH & PLASTICITY The younger the brain, the more plastic it is. Young brains have the ability to learn and adapt with great ease. Young brains even have the potential to rewire themselves, and are thus able to overcome severe trauma, such as damage to an entire hemisphere. For example, a seven-year-old named Michael in…

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LEARNING LANGUAGE [ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT ]

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

LEARNING LANGUAGE [ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT ] The enhancement and pruning of neural networks occurs most apparently as the baby begins to develop language. Spoken languages can sound very different from each other. In all, human languages produce about 200 different spoken sounds, called phonemes. Spoken English contains just over one-sixth of those possible sounds. Brain…

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CHANGES IN PLASTICITY OR ALBERT & THE RAT

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

CHANGES IN PLASTICITY OR ALBERT & THE RAT CHANGES IN PLASTICITY By the time a baby is three or four months of age, its behavior provides clues to its having reached new milestones in brain development. At that age, individual infants differ widely in their reaction to events and in their patterns of brain activity…

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NEURAL DARWINISM [ NEWBORN ]

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

NEURAL DARWINISM Some scientists argue that as the brain incorporates new experiences and makes new connections among neurons, it expresses a form of evolution through the competition of its various neural networks. Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Gerald Edelman suggests that the brain’s many networks vie against each other in “neural Darwinism.” While genes determine how the…

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NEWBORN NEURONS / ESTABLISHING NETWORKS

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

NEWBORN NEURONS As a baby emerges from the womb, brain development expands to include processing responses to the baby’s new experiences sights, sounds, smells, actions, sensations, and emotions. Networks of neurons, primed to receive new stimuli,compete for survival. It’s a random battle at first, but soon becomes more organized as environmental stimuli strengthen some connections…

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A GOOD START FOR THE PREGNANT MOTHER

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

A good start for the pregnant mother – diet/prevention/risk EAT WELL The first, and easiest, thing a mother to be can do is to eat for two: This doesn’t mean doubling up on servings it means remembering that the vitamins and minerals from a well-balanced diet not only nourish mom’s brain and body but the…

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NEW BORN BRAIN – SUPPORT & SURVIVAL

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

NEW BORN BRAIN – SUPPORT & SURVIVAL Migrating neurons are helped along by glial cells. They support and nourish the neurons on their journeys. Some help regulate the neurons’ metabolism, and others coat the nerve cells’ axons with myelin, a fatty substance that provides electrical insulation and thus controls the speed of communication along neural…

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NEURON & UNDERSTANDING MIGRATION – NEW BRAIN

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

NEURON MIGRATION The most dynamic growth occurs in the cerebral cortex, the largest and outermost layer of the brain.During the first months of fetal development, when 250,000 new nerve cells are being created every minute, neurons begin to take on specialized tasks. First, they inch their way from where they were formed by cell division…

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A NEW BRAIN FROM THE WOMB TO CHILDHOOD

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

A NEW BRAIN FROM THE WOMB TO CHILDHOOD WHEN SPERM meets egg, the merger of a father’s and mother’s DNA triggers the start of a new life. Encoded in the tens of thousands of genes that make up a human being are a substantial fraction that will create the brain and central nervous system. You…

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SPECIALIZATION BEGINS / GENDER DIFFERENCES / PREPROGRAMMING [ BRAIN DEVELOPMENT ]

ByTeam HUMANITYUAPD

SPECIALIZATION BEGINS As modern humans evolved from their hominid ancestors, their brain development continued with increasing specialization of regions and functions. One hypothesis suggests that the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain can be traced to humans’ simian ancestors swinging through trees. Grasping one limb after another requires the arms…