Brain Development

Question 1

🧠🧠🧠

Brain development- introduce

Answer 1

Rapidly grows and constantly change
Making connections between different regions
During the early years than any time of life

Begins to form from the prenatal stage, 3 weeks after conception

Different between 🧍🏼‍♀️🧠 and 👶 🧠 is PLASTICITY
The quality if being easily shaped and molded)

Both genes and environmental factors affect the brain development.

Genes- basic wiring plan and establish general connections

Environ. - fine tunes connections and help the child adapt to the environment

Ex : born with the ability to learn a lan- gene
what language is mastered, size of voc, dialect - environment

Question 2

🧠 development at BIRTH

Answer 2

• still working in progress
• quater of the size of an adult brain
• born with 86-100 billion neurons with no connections made yet.

-born with only the lower neural centers developed.
(Spinal code and brain stem) controls the child’ behavior and reflexes.

• the brain develops rapidly during the first 5 years
• size of the brin doubles at the end of the first year
• 3 yrs :80% , kindergarten: 90% of and adult brain is completed.

Question 3

🧠 Brain connections

Answer 3

• first few years is the best time to develop brain connections
• born with 100billion neurons and the neurons are connected by neural connection : SYNAPSES
• builds billions of neural connections
  This network of synaptic connections determine how the child thinks and act.
• Brain connections are developed through INTERACTION
  •Interaction develops connection between different parts of the brain. Allowing new ideas, insights and creative thinking
  • strengthens neural connections

🔴Synaptic pruning - by which the unused neural connections are eliminated to increase the efficiency of neural transmission.
Active connections are selected and inactive ones.

Thus,,, EXPERIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT is highly essential to foster positive neural connections.

Positive nurturing - positive brain connections develop
Negative nurturing- improves toxic stress and only fewer brain connections are made .

There are critical periods concerning brain development
Windows of time when different regions of the brain
becomes relatively more sensitive to life experience.
Ex : before 2 emotional and language regions shoudl develop
adequate visual and verbal input ➡️ if not permanent imparement

Question 4

Describe the parents role in brain development

Answer 4

👫Parents Play an important role

👫The parents touching comforting rocking singing and talking provides great stimulation to developing brain.

Language is also identified as a great stimulation To develop the regions in the brain that it’s related to linguistic competencies.

Question 5

Describe The changes of the brain after birth 🧠🤱🏽

Answer 5

• The immature brain at birth starts to grow rapidly after birth.
• The cerebral cortex starts to grow and produce most of it synaptic connections

DENDRITES
- Brain also grows in size.
At birth The brain is very small.
Each brain cell begins as a sapling and sprouts its hundreds of long branches Dendrites.
The brain grows larger due to the growth of these dendrites.

MYELINATION

• Brain develops in the form of neural processing
• Neural processing is the transmission of information
• neural processing is very slow at birth but the speed increases during infancy and early childhood.
• This is due to the gradual myelination of the nerve cell axons.
• Myelin ➡️ A fatty substance that protects axon and increase Electrical transmission between nerves.

Question 6

Effects of maltreatment on early brain development

Answer 6

Neural circuits of the brain Are not fixed structures.

Experience Can alter the strengthening and weakening all these neural connection.

A child brought up in a positive environment and receives positive responses I likely to strengthen positive neural pathways.

Children who experience negative responses and abuse, develop neural connections strengthened under negative circumstances
This prepare then to cope in the negative environment.
There ability to respond to a positive environment will be impaired.

Why ?
In a child who is exposed to constant maltreatment - brain development focuses on surviving the negative environment.
The development is adaptive to the negative environnement, not to others.
🧒 living in environment 🔥🔥🌪 ➡️ hyper alert response to danger. As the brain focuses on the strengthening strategies for survival in the envir.

Question 7

Two effects of maltreatment on the brain

😣😣😖😩 Chronic stress
😳😳😨😰 persistent fear response

Answer 7

Chronic Stress 😣😔😖😫
-overdevelops regions of brain pertaining to anxiety and fear responses

• under development of other regions involved with complex thought, learning. Etc
• causes chronic stimulation of the brain’s fear response. - activation of the region of the brain involved with responses to fear.
• harmful body’s responses
  Maltreatment alters the biological stress systems
  Chemical cortisol- helps prepare and cope with stress.
  🧒👶 exposed to maltreatment have abnormal secretion of cortisol, making their body’s responses impaired.

😳😳😨😰 Persistent fear response
-Brain is designed to process, store threatening info and reacts physically.

• chronic stress and traumas cause complications to
  Neurochemical systems - causes negative changes in attention, impulse, sleep, fine motor skills
  Ex: traumatic experience➡️ reduce functioning of the hippocampus ➡️ impaires memory
  Traumatic experience ➡️ complications to sub cortical and limbic systems ➡️ develops anxiety.
• the activation of fear response create memories that shape the perception and responses to the environment.

Dissociative hyper arousal response 🌪
- pathways for fear response sensitize often it creates memories and and the responses to them become automatic - HYPER AROUSAL.

-Brain adapts to an unpredictable world.
Thus it is hyper vigilant.

• the regions involved in the brain with hyper arousal is always activated.
  ( in a state of hyper arousal brains alarms systems are activated ➡️ the child often is anxious or aggressive.
• even when the child is exposed to a reminder the regions of hyper arousal are reactivated
• hyper arousal provokes dangerous behaviors, due to their preoccupation of the traumatic experiences.

Long term effects.
- rarely achieves the state of attentive calm - learning and concentrating
The activation of regions concerning fear response or hyper arousal inhibits the activation of these.

• limited capacity empathy.
• causes mental health problems
  • diminished growth of the left hemisphere➡️ risk for depression
  • irritability in the limbic system➡️ emergence of panic disorder or post traumatic stress disorder
  • smaller growth in the hippocampus and limbic abnormalities ➡️ dissociative disorder and memory impairment.
  •impairment in the connection between the two hemispheres - ADHD
  •severely neglected children of sensory stimulation➡️ sensory integration disorder
  • totally disregarded of comfort and affection ➡️ reactive attachment disorder

Question 8

Abuse in childhood

How it changes Brian structure

Answer 8

Corpus cailosum (cortical functions, sensory, cognitive performance between hemispheres
⬇️
Decrease

Hippocampus (learning and memory)
⬇️
Decrease

Frontal cortex
⬇️
Less volume ➡️ behavior and balancing emotions

Amygdala ( processing emotions and determining reactions to dangerous situs)
⬇️
Overactivity

Cerebellum
⬇️
Reduce size ➡️ motor skills and coordination

How does abuse make an impact
Depends on 
How long it happened
What age the child was when it happened
The abuser 
How long the abuse last
If the child had a dependable parent 
The severity of the abuse