01/03/2019

Biological aspects of human

development
Development of the Brain and Sensory Capabilities

Development of the brain

The brain is part of the central nervous system, and
plays a decisive role in controlling many bodily
functions.

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Development of the brain: Brain anatomy

Corpus Callosum
‐ The nerve bundle in the center of the brain, connecting the
hemispheres. Messages must move through it to get from one brain
hemisphere to the other.
Brain Stem
‐ It controls all the things that the body does involuntarily, such as
digestion, breathing and the beating of the heart
Cerebrum
‐ It is the largest part of the brain as a whole, and have areas called
lobes that control cognitive and motor functions, as well as
perception, imagination, thought, judgment, and decision‐making
Cerebellum
‐ It integrates sensory perception and motor output, and helps the
body keeps its balance.

Which part of the cerebrum undergoes the

earliest maturation?

Earliest Maturing areas of the cerebrum are the

Primary Motor and Sensory Areas

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What is the brain made up of?

Neurons are the basic unit of the brain and

nervous system. The brain is made up of billions
of neurons whose function is to store and
transmit information (Huttenlocher & Dabholkar, 1997).

TRUE OR FALSE…
No new neurons were produced after a
baby was born.

FALSE!
Formation of new neurons in the hippocampus
occurs throughout life (Kemperman & Gage, 1999).

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What are the components of neurons?

Cell body, dendrites, axon, terminal buttons

Development of the brain

Brain Growth Spurt:
‐ Period between the
seventh prenatal
month and 2 years of
Brain Growth
age when more than Spurt
half of the child’s Begins
Here
eventual brain weight
is added.
‐ The brain increases in
weight by about 1.7
grams a day. An
increase in brain
weight is a general
index only.

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What accounts for the brain growth spurt?

The development of glia or oligodendrocyte, a type of

nerve cell that nourish the neurons, and eventually
encase them in insulating sheaths of a waxy substance
called myelin (process of myelination).

Development of the brain

First growth spurt: During 4th and 5th month of prenatal development
‐ Due to formation of neurons
Second growth spurt: Between 25th week of prenatal development
and the end of the 2nd year of life after birth
‐ Due to proliferation of dendrites and axon terminals

Source: kids.frontiersin.org

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What do you see?

The process of synaptogenesis—the formation of

synaptic connections among neurons

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Development of the brain

Synaptogenesis proceeds rapidly during the brain
growth spurt.
‐ It continues from the prenatal period forming
thousands of new connections during infancy
and toddlerhood.
‐ Synapses are created with astonishing speed
in the first three years of life. The neurons
become connected through repetitive learning
experiences.
‐

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What do we call the period of rapid

neural growth?

SYNAPTIC BLOOMING
This is when the brain produces more dendrites
and synaptic connections than the brain uses.
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Is there a purposeful, genetically governed and

experientially shaped destruction of existing
neurons and their synaptic connections?

YES!
Synaptic Pruning
It is the normally occurring process that change and
reduce the number of neurons, synapses and axons
that exist within the brain and nervous system.

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Development of the brain

The blooming period of neural growth is then
followed by a period of Synaptic Pruning, where
neural connections are reduced thereby making those
that are used much stronger.
‐ Other surviving neurons that are stimulated less often lose
their synapses and stand in reserve to compensate for brain
injuries or to support new skills
‐ It is thought that pruning causes the brain to function
more efficiently, allowing for mastery of more complex
skills (Kolb & Whishaw, 2011).
‐ Experience will shape which of these connections are
maintained and which of these are lost.

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Why is the gray matter of the brain gray?

Gray matter is mostly neuron cell bodies and glial

cells, and take on their natural grayish color, since it
is not surrounded by white myelin.
Gray matter is mostly found on the brain's surface
(cortex: the thin outer covering of the brain involved
in voluntary activity and thinking) while white
matter is buried deep in the brain.

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What do we mean by brain plasticity?

It is the ability of the brain to reorganize itself , both

in structure and function, throughout an individual's
life, as a result of environmental interactions and
internal bodily changes.

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Development of the brain

Brain architecture is a process that begins early in life
and continues throughout adulthood.
‐ Early experiences have a decisive impact on the brain, and
on the nature and extent of adult capacities.
‐ How a brain develops hinges on a complex interplay
between one’s genes and their unique experiences.
‐ Brain development is non‐linear: there are prime times for
acquiring different kinds of knowledge and skills.
‐ By the time children reach age three, their brains are twice as
active as those of adults. Activity levels drop during adolescence.
‐ Neuroplasticity allows the neurons in the brain to compensate for
injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new
situations or to changes in their environment.
‐ Neural changes still occurs in adolescence: the white matter
increases, and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs
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Development of the brain

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Development of the brain

‐ Myelination contributes to what infants are able to do.
‐ Aids in reflexive functions such as breathing
‐ Myelination of motor pathways allows neonates to show
stereotyped reflexes.
‐ Myelination will allow the disorganized movements of the
neonate to come under increasing control.
‐ Vision, hearing, and skin senses are less well myelinated at birth.
‐ Myelination of the nerves to muscles is largely developed by the
age of 2 years, which helps in motor development.
‐ Myelinization of the higher brain centers may increase
adolescents’ attention spans, and explain why they process
information much faster than grade‐school children
‐ The reticular formation and the frontal cortex parts of the brain
that allow us to concentrate on a subject for lengthy periods are
not fully myelinated at puberty
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What is the specialization of brain

functions in the left and the right cerebral
hemispheres called?

Cerebral lateralization
The left and right cerebral hemispheres serve
different functions and control different areas of
the body.
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Development of the brain

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Sensory and Perceptual Development

Sensation occurs when information interacts with
sensory receptors ‐‐ the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils,
and skin
Perception is the interpretation of what is sensed

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Sensory capabilities
Auditory capabilities (Hearing)
‐ Soft sounds that adults hear must be made noticeably
louder before a neonate can detect them
‐ Insensitivity to softer sounds could be due, in part, to fluids
that have seeped into the inner ear during the birth process
‐ They are capable of discriminating sounds that differ in
loudness, duration, direction, and frequency (Bower, 1982)
‐ Blinking: infants’ reaction to a rapidly approaching auditory
stimulus
‐ Very young infants are particularly responsive to the
sound of human voices.
‐ They are particularly attentive to voices, especially high‐
pitched feminine voices (Ecklund‐Flores & Turkewitz, 1996).

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Can infants recognize their mother’s voices?

YES!
Newborns suck faster on a nipple to hear a
recording of their mother’s voice than a recording
of another woman based on the research by
Anthony DeCasper and his associates (DeCasper &
Fifer, 1980; DeCasper & Spence, 1986, 1991).
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Sensory capabilities
Auditory capabilities (Hearing)
‐ Infants are able to discriminate basic speech sounds
(phonemes) very early in life.
‐ Research by Peter Eimas (1975b, 1985) revealed that 2 to 3
months old infants could distinguish consonant sounds that
are very similar (e.g., ba and pa).
‐ The developmental trajectory of learning phonemes and
words is slightly delayed in babies from bilingual homes.
‐ Infants learn to extract patterns from speech and by
7½ months are able to generalize these language‐
learned patterns to other sounds such as tones,
instrument timbres, and animal sounds (Marcus,
Fernandes, & Johnson, 2007).

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Sensory capabilities
Auditory capabilities (Hearing)
‐ Infants soon learn to recognize words that they hear often.
‐ The following occurs in normal development:
‐ By 3 ½ months, can discriminate parent’s voices
‐ By 4½ months, they will reliably turn their heads to hear
their own name but not to hear other names, even when
these other names share the same stress pattern as their own
‐ At 5 months, if the speaker is loud enough (at least 10
decibels), infants are able to detect their own names against
a background of babbling voices.
‐ At about 1 year, infants turn in response to their own names
when the names are only 5 decibels louder than background
voices (Newman, 2005).
‐ By 1 year and 5 months, hearing is similar to adults’

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What happens when hearing is impaired?

Youngsters with recurring infections may have difficulties

understanding others’ speech, which could hamper their
language development and other cognitive and social skills
that normally emerge early in childhood.
• Children who have had recurring ear infections early in life do
show delays in language development and poorer academic
performance early in elementary school than peers whose bouts
with the disease were less prolonged
• They also exhibit impaired auditory attention skills

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Sensory capabilities
Olfactory and Gustatory abilities (Smell and Taste)
‐ Infants are born with some very definite taste preferences.
‐ They apparently prefer sweets, because both full‐term and
premature babies suck faster and longer for sweet liquids
than for bitter, sour, salty, or neutral (water) solutions
‐ Different tastes also elicit different facial expressions from
newborns.
‐ Sweets reduce crying, produce smiles and smacking of lips
‐ Sour substances cause infants to wrinkle their noses and
purse their lips.
‐ Bitter solutions often elicit expressions of disgust (a down‐
turning of the corners of the mouth, tongue protrusions, and
even spitting)

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Sensory capabilities
Olfactory and Gustatory abilities (Smell and Taste)
‐ Newborns are capable of detecting a variety of odors, and
they react vigorously by turning away and displaying
expressions of disgust in response to unpleasant smells
‐ First 4 days after birth, babies already prefer the odor of milk
to that of amniotic fluid (Marlier, Scholl, & Soussignan, 1998)
‐ A 1‐ to 2‐week‐old breast‐fed infant can already recognize his
mother and discriminate her from other women by the smell
of her breasts and underarms (Cernoch & Porter, 1985).
‐ Macfarlane (1977) found that 6‐day‐old infants consistently
turned to the side facing their mother’s breast pad unlike the
2‐day‐old infants.
‐ This showed that the infants had learned their mother’s unique
smell in their first week of life, and had developed a preference
for her smell over the smells of other nursing women.

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What does touch contributes to infants’

development?

Touch is a primary means by which infants acquire

knowledge about their environment, which contributes so
crucially to their early cognitive development (Piaget, 1960).
Touch and close contact promote developmental progress in
all infants, not just premature babies. Touch lowers stress
levels, calms, and promotes neural activity in infants.
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Sensory capabilities
Tactile ability (Touch, Temperature and Pain)
‐ Newborns reliably display a variety of reflexes if they are
touched in the appropriate areas.
‐ Neonates habituate to stroking at one locale but respond
again if the tactile stimulation shifts to a new spot—from
the ear to the chin, for example (Kisilevsky & Muir, 1984).
‐ Later in the first year, babies begin to use their sense of
touch to explore objects.
‐ First with their lips and mouths and later with their hands.
‐ Newborns are quite sensitive to warmth, to cold, and
to changes in temperature.
‐ They refuse to suck if the milk in their bottles is too hot, and
they maintain their body heat by becoming more active
should the temperature of a room suddenly drop (Pratt, 1954).
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Do babies experience pain?

Yes!
For even 1‐day‐old infants cry loudly when pricked by a
needle for a blood test. In fact, very young infants show
greater distress upon receiving an inoculation than 5‐ to 11‐
month‐olds do (Axia, Bonichini, & Benini, 1999).

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Is the visual system of babies working?

Yes!
Changes in brightness elicit a subcortical pupillary reflex, which
indicates that the neonate is sensitive to light (Pratt, 1954).
Babies can also detect movement in the visual field and track a
visual stimulus with their eyes, as long as the target moves slowly
(Banks & Salapatek, 1983).

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Sensory capabilities
Visual abilities (Visual Acuity, Peripheral Vision, and Preference)
‐ Vision may be the least mature of the newborn’s sensory
capabilities.
‐ Studies of visual acuity (a person’s ability to see small
objects and fine detail) suggest that a neonate’s distance
vision is about 20/600, which means that she sees at 20 feet
what an adult with excellent vision sees at 600 feet.
‐ By 6 months, babies’ visual acuity is about 20/200 and by 12
months of age, they see about as well as adults do.
‐ Very young infants have trouble accommodating (changing
the shape of the lens of the eye to bring visual stimuli into
focus) so objects at any distance look rather blurry to them.
‐ Infants require sharper visual contrasts (the amount of
light/dark transition in a visual stimulus) to “see” patterns
and forms than adults do (Kellman & Banks, 1998).
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Sensory capabilities
Visual abilities (Visual Acuity, Peripheral Vision, and Preference)
‐ Neonates see the world in color, although they have
trouble discriminating blues, greens, and yellows from
whites (Adams & Courage, 1998).
‐ Rapid development of the visual brain centers and sensory
pathways allows their color vision to improve quickly.
‐ By 2 to 3 months of age, babies can discriminate all the basic
colors (Brown, 1990; Matlin & Foley, 1997)
‐ By age 4 months they are grouping colors of slightly different
shades into the same basic categories—the reds, greens,
blues, and yellows—that adults do (Bornstein, Kessen, &
Weiskopf, 1976).

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Sensory capabilities
Visual abilities (Visual Acuity, Peripheral Vision, and Preference)
‐ Newborn infants are more likely to track faces (or face‐like
stimuli) than other patterns
‐ Prefer stripes and curved lines
‐ Prefer and identify mother’s face
‐ Prefer edges of face such as chin
‐ Both experience‐independent and experience‐dependent
mechanisms promote the development of the infant visual
systems (Johnson, 2001).
‐ Visual functions evident in newborns are largely experience‐
independent.
‐ As infants explore the world with their eyes, experience‐
dependent mechanisms—such as synaptic reinforcement—
begin to contribute to the development of visual acuity.

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Sensory capabilities
Visual abilities (Visual Acuity, Peripheral Vision, and Preference)
‐ Newborns are biologically prepared to seek visual
stimulation and make visual discriminations.
‐ Early visual experiences are important, for they keep the
visual neurons firing and contribute to the maturation of
the visual centers of the brain (Nelson, 1995).
‐ By about 2 to 3 months of age, maturation has progressed
to the point of allowing an infant to see more detail, scan
more systematically, and begin to construct visual forms,
including one for faces in general, as well as more specific
configurations that represent the faces of familiar
companions.

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Methodologies of Infant Perception

Visual Preference Paradigm

Fantz (1958, 1961) placed
babies in a looking chamber
and presented them several
visual stimuli.
If they spend more time
gazing at one pattern more
than another, it is assumed
they can discriminate
between them.

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Habituation/Dishabituation
Habituation: the decrease in response to a stimulus
as a result of repeated presentations of that
stimulus.
Infants can habituate to a visual stimulus.
The longer infants are exposed to a stimulus, the less
time they will spend looking at it.
Habituation occurs when there is a substantial
decrease in looking time following repeated
presentation.

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Habituation/Dishabituation
Often defined as when fixation to the stimulus is
50% of what it was initially.
If a new stimulus is then presented, the infant may
show a sudden increase in looking time.
‐ This is dishabituation.
Thus, the infant can discriminate between the two
stimuli.
Also indicates that infants can remember the earlier
stimulus.

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Habituation/Dishabituation

Using this paradigm,

Friedman (1972) found
evidence that 1- to 3-
day-old infants will
habituate and
dishabituate to visual
stimuli.
Newborns are capable
of visual memory.

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