What is a sensitive period?

In response to the environment, neuronal pathways can change their local connectivity, their strength, and also their myelination, surrounding themselves with an insulating sheath of myelin, which accelerates their messages and thus facilitates the transmission of information from one region to another—yet they cannot reorient themselves at will.
(p.102)

Peak plasticity of sensory areas is around age of 1 or 2.
higher-cortex peaks around late childhood or early Adolescence

In each region of the cortex, incessant waves of overproduction are followed by a selective retraction of useless Synapses or, on the contrary, a multiplication of those synapses and dendritic and axonal branches that have proven their worth.
(p.103)
Dendrites

the sensory areas’ organization freezes early while high-level areas are changeable for much longer

For years, young children possess a hybrid brain: their sensory and motor circuits are quite mature, while their higher-level areas continue to operate at the slow speed of unmyelinated circuitry.
(p.105)

In Israel a few weeks of thiamine deprivation, in the first months of their lives, were enough to make them forever lose a sense for syntax.
(p.110)
Nutrition as a Key Element of Learning

see also

The Power and Limits of Synaptic Plasticity
Die Entwicklung des Gehirns
Tags: neuroscience science
Superlink: 050 🧠Neuroscience

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Chapter 5 Nuture’s Share

Erstellt: 27-04-22 12:57