Stages of Early Brain Development
Brain development happens at different rates for different parts of the brain but here are the major trends in the construction that takes place:
- In the womb: folding of the brain's outer layer
- Newborn - childhood: the brain grows gradually and continues to develop white matter pathways and maturity of movement and sensation
- Adolescence: gray matter thins out; synapses scale back, and susceptibility to outside influence heightens
- Early adulthood: the prefrontal cortex is still developing.
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- Genes - are a major key factor in brain development due to their contribution to normal individual variation in brain development, and relatively rare genetic alterations.
- Environmental factors - Because having a safe and nurturing environment facilitates proper growth.
- Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are created. The bulk of this process happens during the prenatal period of brain development.
- Synaptogenesis is the process of forming connections or synapses.
- Synaptic pruning is the process where synapses that aren't used grow weaker and disappear.
- Myelination is a key process in neuronal development that begins before birth
It's been thought that the neurons were already created before birth, but research indicates that the brain keeps growing until mid to late childhood, decreases through the early 20s, stabilizes for quite a while, and then begins to decrease further from age 40 onwards.
- Also known as neural plasticity
- This is the capacity of the brain to change in response to experience and the environment.
- It changes the brain from updating the neuronal networks to the formation of new memories to larger structural adaptations.
- The brain has a great amount of plasticity and it remains an essential quality of the brain throughout adulthood.
We might have this idea that our brains change the same way but scientists have observed that there is a considerable variation between individuals in terms of when and what to extent aspects of the brain change.
Individual differences in brain development can be related to psychological differences.
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Neurons are by themselves responsible for the experience of pain. The brain can adapt and manage chronic pain by:
- Mild electric shocks in the brain to stimulate certain areas.
- Magnetic stimulation of the brain.
- Fasting intermittently.
- Glucose supplements.
Apart from these, there are some regular things that we can do to treat chronic pain: exercising, avoiding junk food, quitting smoking, keeping the mind engaged and practising mindfulness.
Fear of abandonment can come from childhood loss or neglect as a child, especially if it is more emotional.
Brain development is the process of creating, strengthening, and discarding connections among the neurons. The growth of each region of the brain depends largely on receiving stimulation. By not attending to that stimulation, your body can't function properly.
The remedy to fear of abandonment in your relationship is to work on exercising that "attachment muscle," allowing yourself to become more vulnerable and open with your partner.
When we contemplate which has more problem-solving power, the brain or the computer, we might think that the modern computer would come out on top. Indeed, computers have been built and programmed to beat human masters in complex games, such as chess.
However, humans still trump computers in many real-world tasks, such as identifying a particular pedestrian on a crowded city street. Computers are unable to beat humans at conceptualization and creativity.
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