Neurocognitive Development in Context Flashcards
what are the gene env interactions
have genetic predispositions
env factors influence gene expression
brain growth, connectivity, specialisation, and cognitive gains are experience dependent
shows need for env stimulation
what are the characteristics of a sensitive period and plasticity
Sensitive (or critical) period
* Increased ability of a biological system to change in response to experience
* Optimal (critical) time window for the development of an ability
* Greater sensitivity to environmental influences to foster that ability
* Greater plasticity during sensitive periods
what is the difference between sensitive and critical period
sensitive period and critical almost same thing but critical more dramatic, something has to happen in that period or the development of the skill will not happen. the sensitive is a window of time where a particular experience will have the greatest impact on the developing skill. can still grow out of the sensitive period but wont happen as fast/as well.
what is the opening mechanism for a critical period
- Greater parvalbumin(PV) interneurons
increased gamma oscillations
Decrease in excitation/ inhibition ratio
growth of PV neurons inhibit the spontaneous activity,
particularly important for the activity that the child is doing is going to be clear because the activity that is not related to the env stimuli is inhibited,
this leads to greater shaping of the brain circuitry. at the start of the critical period
how is the critical period closed
CLosing the cirtical period is done through the development of perineural nets around PV cells. increase in PNN stabilises brain activity in those circuits. the shaping done by the inhibition is then stabilised by this process, closing the critical period.
are there more than one sensitive (critical period)
which ones have critical periods earlier
yes in infancy they are unimodal,
childhood multimodal
adolescence transmodal
the networks that are unimodal have an earlier critical period than those networks that are multimodal.
what is the role of experience in critical periods
rich vs neglect and why
there is experience dependent moulding of the brain circuit/ neurocognitive development
timing of sensitive (critical periods)
rich env extends critical periods, neglect shortens it, likely that PV interneurons and PNNs and development of dendrites are affected by this.
what are the failure characteristics of lack of stimulation (neglect)
Failure to meet a child’s
* Physical needs for food, shelter, and safety
* Cognitive, emotional, and social needs
* Global deprivation/severe neglect
* Extreme deprivation in more than one domain (e.g., language,touch, social interactions)
what are the features of global deprivation/ neglect
Little social interactions (e.g., poor caregiver-to-child ratio)
* Unresponsive and insensitive to children’s needs
* Low sensory, motor, and cognitive stimulation
* Low exposure to mature language
* Tactile deprivation
* Strict adherence to conformity and regimen
what is spitz’s early study on the impacts of neglect
37% of children died by the 2nd year of the experiment.
compared children who were raised in prison by the mothers and those children were placed in an orphanage.
different conditions, prison had access to mothers had access to other caregivers and other babies. children in orphanage had better hygiene but not much interaction other children didnt interact much.
4 months there was not much difference
two years of age the orphanage were really cognitively behind and lots of them died due to lack of interactions led to stress and therefore lower immunity. those raised in the prison showed very similar neurocognitive development as those children in the community.
how does global deprivation impact brain volume
longevity impacts
even brain volume is radically different. it is so much lower than that of a child raised in a good environment.
the longer the deprivation lasts and the earlier it begins in childhood the worse it is for the outcomes of the child.
what are the cognitive impacts of deprivation
lower intelligence
lower cognitive control
greater hyperactivity
lower verbal abilities
what are the emotional impacts of deprivation
disinhibited attachment - equally friendly with everyone, no difference between strangers and caregivers, they don’t have an attachment figure.
frequent outbursts
what are the behavioural consequences of deprivation
stereotypies - the rocking motion.
sleep issues
describe motor stereotypies
rhythmic repetitive prolonged predictable purposeless movements
frequent in but not restricted to children who experienced neglect. other species too
what are the functions of motor stereotypies
attempts at self stimulating
coping mechanism
expression of frustration/anxiety
are motor stereotypies restricted to just children with deprivation
not restricted to global deprivation can also happen to children who grow up in normal env but they tend to be less severe, usually resolve by preschool age in normal env.
not limited to humans also happens in rhesus monkeys - Harlow’s work
motor stereotypies are related to functional issues.
what are motor stereotypies related to in the brain
alterations in the prefrontal basal ganglia functional connectivity
but also lower functional connectivity in a lot of areas in children with complex motor stereotypies
those that did not had better connectivity between frontal cortex and basal ganglia
does cog performance relate to community vs orphanage raising
what is the confound of this study
yes
cog performance better in children raised in community vs orphanages. the difference between two groups gets wider as the children get older.
confound = children who have other diff more likely to be abandoned
how was the confound that children with difficulties are more likely to be abandoned and therefore have cog differences to those in a real home challenged
used program in romania which allowed children to be abandoned to foster families or orphanages, the children were split randomly, doesnt preclude the consequence that there is a difference between the two groups but because it was random hopefully there are not too many differences between difficulties had. care as usual group = in the orphanages, FCG = foster group. better outcomes from the foster group = influence of environment.
age of placement in the foster group mattered
what is the mediating role in deprivation on IQ
effect on IQ mediated by caregiving quality. care in orphanage lower q than in foster. quality was better in orphanage (top right) in both groups there is a correlation between IQ and caregiving quality.
describe the structure of bronfenbrenners ecological systems
macrosystem - ideology laws, customs culture
exosystem - extended family, workplace, mass media, distant friends
mesosystem - school, fam, peers,
what does SES affect in terms of cog abilities
household income and parental education predicts
IQ
spatial abilities
verbal abiliites
selective attention
cogntiive control
this would be observed with almost any cognitive abilities.
SES is based on household income or parental education in these studies which is a coarse way of looking at it, but we still see a huge impact on brain development.
how is SES related to chronic stress
poverty = increased home and neighbourhood violence, more disorganised school
what is the psychosocial hazard of chronic stress
hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis triggers secretion of cortisol
chronic stress leads to upward adjusment of basal cortisol levels
decreased dendritic spines in the prefrontal cortex
Explanation:
helpful for dealing with repetitive stressors but this in the long term is detrimental for the development of the child as it can result in dampened level of dendrites. lower IQ in children is a common outcome.
how does SES effect outcomes via language
lang exposure
vocab diversity and grammar complexity
conversation turn taking involves richer exp of high quality linguistic attentional and social features
w higher parental education and income
describe the study relating language exp verbal abilities and left IFG scores
link between conversational turns per hour and composite conversation scores. link between the two shown through the beta values on the right, demonstrates the strength of the link. a mediation link with no of conversational turns predicting left IFG activation which predicted composite language score the dotted line is without the LFG part being included. also link between the myelin levels in the brain and the number of conversational turns.
how does SES effect the home environment
engage in more cog stimulating challenging activities with children
hold higher achieving expectations
provide a more stimulating home env
what is a more stimulating home env associated with in terms of brain structure
frontoparietal cortical thickness
in 6 - 16 yolds
describe the hypothesis that SES may influence the pace of brain dev
richer env slow down the pace of neurocognitive development, shown through these conceptual curves. cortical thinning happens later in children from high SES backgrounds. high SES have less segregating networks and then later in adolescence the high SES children catch up but also show more segregating networks. during childhood they show a less mature profile in network segregation but show more functional segregation later on.
describe the study and results for how income is logarithmically related to cortical surface area in offspring
most of the differences happen living near poverty, after a while the increase in family income does not have an impact anymore. giving money to people in poverty can actually lead to improved cognitive outcomes. children who grew up in poor families are split in two groups one group received 300 dollars per month whereas the other group got 20 dollars.
what is the impact of poverty reduction on 1 year old infants brain activity
1 year of the study. in the higher income groups = greater frequency of alpha beta and gamma from the EEG power.
but there is not much difference between the theta. however the families that received good money show patterns of power that are not present in the lower income families.
what is the definition of adversity/ maltreatment
physically emotionally or sexually abusive env including physical and or emotional neglect
what is the phenotype of adversity
altered structural and functional brain
modification of sensory systems pathways that bring aversive experience to consciousness
and amygdala response threat
altered cog emotional dev including threat - attentional bias - see more things as threats than non maltreated people. harder to focus at school etc.
early onset puberty
how is cingulo opercular network amygdala funcitonal connectivity related to negative life events
what does this in turn predict
more negative life events predicts less connectivity between the cingulo opercular network and the amygdala which in turn predicts internalising symptoms such as depression and anxiety. the negative life event children showed more segregation in CO left amygdala = more mature brain. which meant that the more mature patterns of functional connectivity is protecting from getting internalising symptoms within the context of negative environments.
what is the stress acceleration hypothesis
adversity/maltreatment accelerates dev + adaptation to survive abusive env - switch from parental regulation to self regulation
early dev of amygdala medial PFC functional connectivity - dev trade off stm adv ltm disad
paretnal care as signla for pace of emotional dev
how does a predictalbe and safe caregiving env compare with a chaotic one for consequences for the length of the parenting window
infancy and toddlerhood sensitive period for caregiving influence - predictable and safety = corticolimbic system dev - determines extent to which caregiver retains influence later on
if they have chaotic parenting the window during which caregiving has an influence is reduced = faster paced brain development. this is an early hypothesis.
what is the developmental support hypothesis
parenting (touch food consistency etc.) as signal for pace of development
conditionally adaptivity across the lifespan
describe the developmental niche as illustrated by Super and Harkness
development unique to each child. mutual influence between the child and the env, dynamic adaptation
the child also influences the other factors
child in middle, then ring with customs, caretaker psych, settings, then bigger ring with aspects of larger culture
does the childrens characteristics matter in the env in terms of reading outcomes (study)
they influence the parental stimualtion which in turn influences early reading
the beta values show that the parent to child regression shows that the cog stim that is given at 2 yoa influences how stimulating the parent will be at 4 yoa.
what are virtuous or vicious circles
child to parent and parent to child bidirectional effects can be good or bad
what is a vicious circle
aversive difficult temperament
leads to coercive forceful unresponsive parenting
what is a virtuous circle
willing open receptive attitude to parent
leads to positive responsive cooperative parenting
what are the outcome differences between early internalising and externalising problems
internalising - more positive parenting = less internalising problems 3 years later
externalisng = more negative parenting = more externalising problems 3 years later
how is effortful control from the child related to intrusive parenting
effortful control at 30 months = less intrusive parenting
also at 54 months
damage has its worse consequences if…
- Damage has worse consequences if it hampers
- Knowledge acquisition (network shaping) early in life
- Knowledge access (established network connections) later in life
what is good for slower maturation and enhanced plasticity
experiences that are novel positive expenses like visiting new places and playing new games meeting new people are good for slower maturation and enhanced plasticity.
what is poverty associated with in the brain (oscillations)
and outcomes
poverty associated w increased low frequency theta and reduced mig to high frequency (alpha beta gamma) EEG power during childhood
associated w lower cog and socio emotional skills
intervention from birth
