The videos “Plastic Brain 1” and “Plastic Brain 2,” illustrate how the brain is malleable and that it is critical to foster neural connections with respect to vision at an early age, otherwise those necessary connections may never be made. The patient depicted in the videos, Holly, is an infant with a cataract that was subsequently surgically removed. This example was employed in order to illustrate how the brain forms visual processing and the importance of early intervention should visual abnormalities be detected in infants. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s malleability. In other words, the human brain is constantly forming new neural pathways, adapting and changing as a result of learning and experience.…
According to Thompson, “the brain is like a puzzle, and growth is fastest in the exact parts the kids need to learn skills at different times. [...] But what really caught our eye was a massive loss of brain tissue that occurs in the teenage years” (Thompson par. 6-7). In this quote, Thompson refers to the brain like a “puzzle” and how most of the growth occurs during the…
According to Society for Neuroscience scientists once thought the brain's key development stopped the first few years of age. Findings have shown that important brain regions go through refinement through…
The brain is a very complex organ made up of nervous tissue. According to Liliefend et al., the most important cell within this tissue is the neuron which receives and generates electrical impulses. These impulses travel through the neurons and trigger chemicals to release neurotransmitters that communicate messages to the body (2011, p. 85-86). The brain is a vital organ that determines our ability to function properly. There are many different areas or lobes in the brain that correspond to the different functions that the body can perform.…
ABSTRACT: This research paper summarizes the effect of alcohol on adolescent brain development. Researchers have discovered striking changes that take place in the teen years. These findings have altered the long held assumptions about the timing of brain maturation. For instance, they discovered that the brain doesn’t look like an adult’s brain until the early 20s.…
In the video of part two, it discuss's the topic of Neuroplasticity and how its process works. My personal view of this concept is the brains way of reorganizing. When looking at the brain it contains billions of nuerons, nuerons pass information between eachother. Neuroplasticity allows adaption to changes, but also adjustments when injured. This process allows the brain to evolve, take in experiences, and physical changes.…
Building New Pathways In The Brain It was once commonly accepted that a person’s brain ceased to change after reaching adulthood. Science believed that each part of the brain had its own specific function, and if a certain part was completely damaged, nothing could be done about it. This led to a belief that treatment for many brain conditions was impractical and unjustified, or that even changing our character was unfeasible. But new discoveries in neuroscience have shown that the brain is actually extremely malleable. In fact, it is always changing with everything we think and experience.…
Unfortunately, head injuries are very common with children, accounting for approximately one hundred thousand hospitalizations annually. Modes of injury include motor vehicle accidents, bicycle accidents, falls, sporting injuries, and child abuse. Certain aspects of brain injury are unique to children. For example, it is more difficult to determine the measure the loss of brain function in a child. In adults there are prior academic records, I.Q. scores, and job histories to rely on.…
neuroplasticity (see reviews: R.Duman, 2002; B.McEwen et al, 2002; M.Yu. Drobizhev, A.F.Iznak 2003; J.-P.Olie, J.-P.Macher, J.. .Costa e Silva, 2004). The term is relatively new to psychiatry, it has long been used in cognitive neuroscience to describe rearrangements (mostly functional) organization neural network, developing in the training underlying memory (E.Kendel, 1980; B.I.Kotlyar, 1986), and neurology and neurosurgery (V.V.Semchenko, 1994; GN Kryzhanovsky, 2001; E.I.Gusev, P.R.Kamchatnov, 2004) - to describe the processes of recovery (at least partial) of certain brain functions after the organic CNS damage (as a result of stroke, traumatic brain injury,…
Embryonic development is the changes an embryo undergoes as it grows toward a developed organism. In early embryonic development, the first stage begins with fertilization, when the female egg fuses with the male sperm to create a zygote (Biology.OpenStax.1753). After a zygote is formed, cleavage (unusually large cell) converts the zygote to a multicellular organism (embryo) by rapidly dividing a single cell (each the same size) to form a hollow ball of cells, called a blastula. The next stage in development is when the blastula forms a blastocyst, in which the blastula divides itself into two layers called the embryoblast (inner cell mass) and the trophoblast (outer layer) (Biology. OpenStax.1754).…
Neurodevelopmental disorders are disorders wherein impairments in neural development lead to deficits in various cognitive and/or social abilities (Reynolds & Goldstein, 1999). Historically, researchers have often assumed that human cognition is served by numerous “modules”, each of which performs a specific cognitive function. It is typically argued that each module is supported by a specific brain region whose evolutionarily-defined characteristics confer neural properties that facilitate module-appropriate cognitive operations (Buss, 2010). Accordingly, many neurodevelopmental disorders have historically been viewed as deficits that arise in consequence of the abnormal development of a particular module (e.g. Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). The neuroconstructivist position (Karmiloff-Smith, 1998, 2009, 2010) rejects this account of neurodevelopmental disorders.…
The executive functions involve various neurocognitive skills such as cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibition control, reasoning, and planning (Carlson et al, 2003). It is a hierarchical model which governs the control and coordination of information processing. The executive functions emerge from infancy and develop swiftly during the preschool years. Dynamic brain changes within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are consequently closely associated with the development. Throughout the essay, I am going to focus on the childhood development of cognitive flexibility, inhibition control, planning, and working memory among the broad range of executive functions, and discuss the implications of the brain changes, in regard to the lateral PFC…
Trauma refers to or is used to describe a significant physical or mental experience that causes some sort of drastic change within someone’s life. Traumatic experiences can have effect all individuals at any age. It can cause temporary, chronic, or life-threatening occurrences. Trauma can lead to other factors that impacts our daily lives and has a massive impact on ones future development more importantly neural development. How can such events determine ones developmental process neurologically, and how can spirituality counter the effects of trauma?…
This is said to be one of the factors causing in humans a rare brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) that causes thinking difficulty, impaired judgment, speech difficulty, loss of co-ordination and blurred vision. Having stated the physical and environmental factors of brain development, one can now get a clear idea on how to maximize factor utilization to be beneficial for brain development. (faculty.washington.edu/factors-affecting-brain-development) When it comes to the psychological aspects of brain development, brain activity in different intervals of ones life span, the activities that occur are given below: Stage 1: 0 to 10…
Seeing how kids and teenagers develop and deciding the stage procedures is a complex selection of theories. Numerous thinkers and specialists have their own theory of how the body and mind grow. There is no good and bad in their methods of insight, there are appraisals of human development. While a few speculations can be straightforwardly connected to a man, so can another. To demonstrate reality in these theories, I will give examples of how all the kids in the movie ‘Babies’ by Thomas Balmes demonstrate characteristics discussed in each given theory.…