...INTRODUCTION The human brain is a complex organ that begins to grow and develop at just four weeks prenatal and continues on changing and developing until a person’s death (Boyd & Bee, 2012). A person’s heredity and genes play a part in this development however a person’s experience also shapes the development of the brain. The age old debate of nature verse nurture can be applied to brain development. The following discussion will take the reader on a journey through the development of the brain from its prenatal development to its development in old age. The reader will see that it is the combination of both genes and the environment which shapes the brain. The report will show that both nature and nurture are required to develop a healthy brain. DISCUSSION The human brain is set apart from other animal in its ability relay thoughts and mental states including desires, ideas, and intentions to other individuals. This concept is referred to as theory of mind and to date has not been seen in any other animal (Harmony, 2008). The question is what shapes the brain? Is it shaped by a person’s genes or is it the environment that person lives in. The answer is both. The human brain needs both genes and experience in order to develop healthily and to its fullest potential. Brain Development Prenatal The human brain begins to development well before birth. By the sixth week of pregnancy, an embryo’s brain is able to move in response to stimuli and by week eight the brain connects with...
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...ISSUE BRIEF November 2009 Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development What’s Inside: • How the Brain Develops This issue brief provides basic information on brain development and the effects of abuse and neglect on that development. The information is designed to help professionals understand the emotional, mental, and behavioral impact of early abuse and neglect in children who come to the attention of the child welfare system. • Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development • Implications for Practice and Policy • Summary U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau Child Welfare Information Gateway Children’s Bureau/ACYF 1250 Maryland Avenue, SW Eighth Floor Washington, DC 20024 800.394.3366 Email: info@childwelfare.gov www.childwelfare.gov Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development www.childwelfare.gov In recent years, there has been a surge of research into early brain development. New technologies, such as neuroimaging (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging or MRI), provide increased insight into how the brain develops and how early experiences affect that development. One area that has been receiving increasing research attention involves the effects of abuse and neglect on the developing brain, especially during infancy and early childhood. Much of this research is providing biological explanations for what practitioners...
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...September 7, 2014 Charles V. Godwin PSY 211: Life-Span development Instructor: Dr. Mike Considine Week Two: The Brain and Neurons Development Developmental change evolves slowly in early childhood of the infant’s physical and central nervous systems. The infant’s physical and central nervous systems undergo rapid change during the first two years of life. The child weight double by five months of age, triples by twelve months of age, and quadruples by the age of twenty-four months. The child length does not change as fast as the weight, because the length of the child at birth is seventy-five of what it will be at the age of two years old. The changes in length and weight are accompanied by the transformations in the child’s body proportions. During this time the head grows the fastest and matures the earliest, followed by the rest of the body downward (e.g. the neck, torso, legs). Those parts that are closest to the center of the infant’s body (e.g. the trunk) grow faster and mature earliest than do parts that are farther from the center (e.g. the hands). (Santrock, 2013) The rapid changes in the child body proportions affect other domains of development, including perceptual, motor, cognitive, and emotional. The physical structure of the brain develops rapidly. We are born with almost all of the neurons that we will ever have, the human brain triples in weight by the age of three and quadruples in weight by age fourteen. The reason for the rapid change in the brain’s...
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...You may feel like it is somewhat hard to control your actions, behaviors, and understand some of your emotions. Parents, authority, and others may be asking you to; just think logically, control your impulses, or think recognize the long term consequences of your current actions. The previous understanding our teenage brains was that it was fully developed and young people were just rebels without a cause; however through more recent advances in neuroscience and technology to help understand our brains, we can now see that the brain development is much different than our previous beliefs. Not that we are any less intelligent, on the contrary we are more intelligent than ever before; however our teenage and young adult brain is still developing...
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...much about kids,” I sighed. My husband was very excited to have kids, but I wasn't because I was thinking I should know more about kids before I have one. I was afraid. What if I become a bad mother? What if I did something wrong to my baby? I know that children can be affected by parents, but I want to know what the other things that effect on children. Last session, in reading class, I found an article “Mom’s love good for child’s brain”, which made me more interest in that topic. I knew from the article that mother’s love one of the effects on children. Children rising in good mothering environment have larger hippo-campus than those rising in bad mothering environment. However, I am sure there are more things that effect on children brains. Since my husband and I start to think about having baby, I want to know more about baby’s development, and how could I provides better life curriculum and socially to my baby? How can I let my baby become smart and not cause any issues to him/her? What are the things that could hurt my baby’s brain? So I began in my research trip. I took two weeks to complete my research. In the first week, I start interviewing people. I interviewed four people including psychiatrist and ophthalmologist. They all told me that parent effect on children. Also, Doctor Stevens who is psychiatrist said that the ways that parents treat their children effect on them, either in a good way or in a bad way. For example, children hit by their parents are more...
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...Schizophrenia Disrupts Brain Development Monica Jones Behavioral Science and Research Method Southern University and A&M College Lionel Jolla, MSW, LMSW – Professor November 18, 2015 Abstract I embarked on this project because I am interested in how schizophrenia affects the brain and what researchers have discovered as far as medicine for this condition. I am looking for a phenomenon that explains why this disorder is destroying brain volume and how this process can be stopped. Schizophrenia is a baffling disorder that reduces brain volume. When and how does schizophrenia begin is one of my concerns. It is hard to figure out when, why and how schizophrenia begins because it can occur as early as the neonate stage of life and as late as the geriatric stage in life. When schizophrenia starts to decrease brain volume, is the brain fully developed is another one of my concerns. Brain volume decreases in schizophrenia patients naturally, but the antipsychotic medication is a contributing factor also. The antipsychotic medication has been known to have adverse side effects on the brain volume. Have researchers found a medication that has a less severe effect on schizophrenia patient’s brain volume, is another question I am interested in finding the answer too. Schizophrenia is an unexplainable disorder that offers no specific answer to how it occurs. In this study I am hoping to find that specific answer to this brain crippling disorder. MRI scans have been the...
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...Running Head: BRAIN ASYMMETRY A COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH OF BRAIN ASYMMETRY: ZEBRAFISH (Danio rerio) AND MEDAKA (Oryzias latipes). Student Name Panther id Section number TA name 2 BRAIN ASYMMETRY 2 Introduction Asymmetry is an essential and conserved element of the mind, which is conceived to enhance data processing and task execution in traits central for species continued existence, such as nurturing, predator uncovering and memory (Güntürkün et al. 2000; Rogers 2000; Pascual et al. 2004; Vallortigara & Rogers 2005; Rogers & Vallortigara 2008). Moreover, asymmetry has been suggested as the basis of language and other behavioural traits (Sherman et al. 1982; Rogers & Andrew 2002; Hutsler & Galuske 2003; Toga & Thompson 2003) and anomalous asymmetry appears to relate with numerous neuropathologies comprising schizophrenia (Li et al. 2007), autism (Escalante-Mead et al. 2003) and neuronal degenerative disorders (Toth et al. 2004). In the past decade, scientific studies have provided vital insights into the developmental basis of brain imbalance. Exceptionally helpful are genetic model organisms that accept a comprehensive gene to behaviour analysis of this phenomenon (Concha 2004). For instance, recent research in the teleost zebrafish has revealed genetic mechanisms that regulate the growth of neuroanatomical asymmetries ( Halpern et al. 2003; Concha 2004) and recognized the first operational relations among genetics, asymmetric morphology...
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...Adolescents are expected to be young mature adults but many things are stopping them from being trusted with the rights that are given to them. They are many things that should lower the age of adulthood. Some of those things are brain development, renting a car at an airport, going to war. Scientists identified that the brain development doesn’t stop until age 25. They also use brain-scanning technology to look more into the human brain. They pointed out that, “The prefrontal cortex and its links to other regions of the brain are not fully formed until age 25.” This quote explains that you're brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25. So what they are trying to say is that you should be considered a mature adult until that...
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...Development of the social brain during adolescence Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK Adolescence is usually defined as the period of psychological and social transition between childhood and adulthood. The beginning of adolescence, around the onset of puberty, is characterized by large hormonal and physical changes. The transition from childhood to adulthood is also characterized by psychological changes in terms of identity, self-consciousness, and cognitive flexibility. In the past decade, it has been demonstrated that various regions of the human brain undergo development during adolescence and beyond. Some of the brain regions that undergo particularly protracted development are involved in social cognitive function in adults. In the first section of this paper, I briefly describe evidence for a circumscribed network of brain regions involved in understanding other people. Next, I describe evidence that some of these brain regions undergo structural development during adolescence. Finally, I discuss recent studies that have investigated social cognitive development during adolescence. The first time Uta Frith made an impression on me was when I was 15. That year I was given a copy of her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma (U. Frith, 1989), which had recently been published. I knew nothing about autism and found Uta’s book captivating. It inspired me to write to its author and ask if I could...
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...Slide 1 Hi everyone! My presentation will be about brain development and plasticity. Slide 2 “The human brain is estimated to have about a hundred billion nerve cells, two million miles of axons, and a million billion synapses, making it the most complex structure, natural or artificial, on earth.” Tim Green, Stephen F. Heinemann and Jim F. Gusella (from a paper in Neuron, 1998) Slide 3 Brain development. Slide 4 What we know about human brain? The human brain is the most complex of all biological systems. It is made of a hundred billion information processing cells called neurons. The neurons communicated with each other by making connections. This connections called synapses. It is estimated there are 60 trillion connections in the adult brain. It has about 200 000 neurons. Slide 5 Brain has right and a left hemispheres. They connected by a fiber bundle that leads to the two sides of the brain that connect to each other. Average human brain weighs about 2-3 pounds. If we will look inside of adult brain we will see two kinds of tissue: grey matter and white matter. It contains of the cell bodies of the neurons. We can see grey matter along the entire surface of brain. Thats the neocortex. Cortex the brain's outer layer, which is essentially our gray matter. The white matter consist other fiber that connect neurons into information processing networks. Each neuron extends a connecting fiber called axon. Axons covered with a fatty substance called mylan that...
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...Running Head: BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, GENDER, AND IQ Brain development, gender and IQ in children: A volumetric imaging study National University Understanding Young Children: Cognition and the Growing Child In partial fulfillment of ECE 652 Assignment 2.1 Dr. Brenda Sheppard-Johnson April 2010 Brain development, gender and IQ in children: A volumetric imaging study Recap The quantitative study conducted by Reiss, Abrams, Singer, Ross, and Denckla, attempts to answer the question of how brain size, and more importantly cerebral capacity, differs between genders; what, if any, correlation exists between brain morphology; and are there any patterns of age–related changes evident in during childhood. (Reiss et al., 1996, p. 1764) This is one of a few studies that utilizes volumetric imaging to “describe cerebral development and morphology” in normal, non-clinically referred children. (Reiss et al., 1996) Process 100 children between the ages of five and seventeen were given MRI scans of their brains. Of these 100 images, only 85 were used in the final data analysis due to 15 not containing the entire cerebrum in the end result. There were sixty-four females and twenty-one males. The mean ages were 10.6 and 10.7 respectively. The difference between the numbers of girls to boys was due to researchers “recruitment of gender-matched normal controls for ongoing studies of female children with specific genetic...
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...Brain Trauma on the Function and Development of Personality Student’s Name University Affiliation The trauma that occurred Research by Centre for Disease Control indicates that approximately 1.4 million people living in America sustains Traumatic brain injury every year, resulting to concussion trauma (Fowler & McCabe, n.d). Most of these people are children under the age of 14 years. The measurement of the severity of this brain trauma is through the establishment of the duration when the conscious is lost, the alteration of mental status like confusion, as well as in posttraumatic amnesia. The duration between the time of the trauma and the research study This study in a follow up of 30 years after the brain injury shows that patients who experience this type of brain trauma have high prevalence toll of Axis I as well as Axis II psychopathology. In the follow up, major depression, specific phobia, psychotic disorders, panic disorder, as well as alcohol abuse were the major diagnosis (Delisi et al, 2008). Most patients also show at least one personal disorder, with paranoid, schizoid and avoidant being the most rampant. From the study, a unique, disinhibited syndrome of organic personality is also common in these patients. The syndrome is specifically linked to the frontal lesions. The impact of the trauma on overall function According to Fowler and McCabe (n.d), the consequences of concussion trauma brain injury are often upsetting to the victims as well as to their loved...
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...The dendrite is a fiber that extends from a neuron and receives electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons. A synapse is the intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons. Pruning is the process where unused connections in the brain atrophy and die. Pruning of underused and unconnected dendrites begin in the sensory and motor areas of the brain and then occur in other areas. Some brain development is maturational, but experience is also necessary for development, and there are two different types of brain functions that come from experience. Experience-dependent brain functions depend on particular, variable experiences and may or may not develop in a particular infant, while experience-expectant require certain basic common experiences in order to develop normally. During early childhood, myelination is found in several crucial areas of the brain and as impulsiveness and perseveration decrease, children are able to learn more...
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...can cognitive development be understood in terms of specialisation of function in specific structures of the brain? INTRODUCTION In relation to what extent cognitive development can be understood in terms of specialisation of specific structures of the brain, this assignment will observe and use developmental cognitive neuropsychology which explains and seeks to understand a functional relationship between the human brain and its function. In this assignment I will produce two contrasting theories within regards to the functional specialisation, I will accomplish this with study and analysis while debating which brain functions contest and develop by exploring specific key concepts of brain development such as contesting influences that the environment may have upon a maturing brain. Throughout this essay not only will I be discussing concepts of brain development but I will also briefly present the function of language and that it is reliant upon specific structures “Cortical” and whether a pre-specified “particular region” of the brain may have a role in supporting cognitive functions and finally in-turn by using evidence based research within relation to the pre-frontal cortex I will conclude this assignment. In order to explain specialisation of function development of the brain, I will now associate functional specialisation and structural differentiation. There are particular cognitive functions and specific cortical areas in a typical “adult” brain, yet a developing...
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...WEEK 3 POSTED DISCUSSION THE BRAIN AND THE BODY IN THE CURRICULUM The Brain and the Body in the Curriculum. Please respond to the following: • Read “The Biology of Risk Taking” and evaluate the effectiveness of your school’s curriculum to take brain development into account. Recommend ways a high-quality curriculum should reflect students’ brain development. The following recommendations are ways I believe as an educator high-quality curriculum could possibly reflect students’ brain development are: -By educators teaching curriculums that are beneficial of instruction and guided student teaching through reflective principles of Kagan believing if we as educators allow students the opportunities of creativity, collaborative engagement and interactions, or other cooperative learning and collaborative learning/strategies, such as: Improving Memory- examples storytelling- (develops and helps the storage called “Hippocampus...
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