Chimps'r' not us: how infants develop their brain (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, September 01, 2020, 18:53 (1545 days ago) @ David Turell

More studies on development of the infant brain which has little conscious function to begin with:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831165658.htm

"To shed light on the development of this critical cognitive process during early infancy, researchers at the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC) at the UNC School of Medicine conducted a brain imaging study in infants to examine the emergence of neural flexibility, which refers to the frequency with which a brain region changes its role (or allegiance to one functional network to another). Neural flexibility is thought to underlie cognitive flexibility.

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"...the researchers show that brain regions with high neural flexibility appear consistent with the core brain regions that support cognitive flexibility processing in adults, whereas brain regions governing basic brain functions, such as motor skills, exhibit lower neural flexibility in adults, demonstrating the emergence of functionally flexible brains during early infancy.

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"The researchers,...found that neural flexibility increased with age across the whole brain, and specifically in brain regions that control movement, potentially enabling infants to learn new motor skills. Neural flexibility also increased with age in brain regions involved in higher-level cognitive processes, such as attention, memory, and response inhibition, indicating continuing development of these functional networks as babies become toddlers.

"The age-related increase in neural flexibility was highest in brain regions already implicated in cognitive flexibility in adults, suggesting that cognitive flexibility may start to develop during the first two years of life.

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"Additional analysis of brain regions with especially high neural flexibility revealed the presence of relatively weak and unstable connections from these regions to other parts of the brain, potentially showing how these regions can rapidly switch their allegiances between different functional networks. By contrast, neural flexibility in brain regions involved in visual functions remained relatively low throughout the first two years of life, suggesting that these regions had already matured.

"Lower levels of neural flexibility (i.e., greater established brain maturity) of visual brain regions at three and 18 months of age were associated with better performance on cognitive and behavioral assessments at the age of five or six years.

"These findings provide insights into the development of higher-level brain functions, and could be used to predict cognitive outcomes later in life."

Comment: cognitive function slowly develops in infants as do memory areas. The concept of a generally blank slate cannot be ignored.