Neurocognitive Development in Context

Question 1

what are the gene env interactions

Answer 1

have genetic predispositions

env factors influence gene expression

brain growth, connectivity, specialisation, and cognitive gains are experience dependent

shows need for env stimulation

Question 2

what are the characteristics of a sensitive period and plasticity

Answer 2

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

Question 3

what is the difference between sensitive and critical period

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

what is the opening mechanism for a critical period

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

how is the critical period closed

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

are there more than one sensitive (critical period)

which ones have critical periods earlier

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

what is the role of experience in critical periods

rich vs neglect and why

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

what are the failure characteristics of lack of stimulation (neglect)

Answer 8

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)

Question 9

what are the features of global deprivation/ neglect

Answer 9

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

Question 10

what is spitz’s early study on the impacts of neglect

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

how does global deprivation impact brain volume

longevity impacts

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

what are the cognitive impacts of deprivation

Answer 12

lower intelligence
lower cognitive control
greater hyperactivity
lower verbal abilities

Question 13

what are the emotional impacts of deprivation

Answer 13

disinhibited attachment - equally friendly with everyone, no difference between strangers and caregivers, they don’t have an attachment figure.
frequent outbursts

Question 14

what are the behavioural consequences of deprivation

Answer 14

stereotypies - the rocking motion.
sleep issues

Question 15

describe motor stereotypies

Answer 15

rhythmic repetitive prolonged predictable purposeless movements

frequent in but not restricted to children who experienced neglect. other species too

Question 16

what are the functions of motor stereotypies

Answer 16

attempts at self stimulating
coping mechanism
expression of frustration/anxiety

Question 17

are motor stereotypies restricted to just children with deprivation

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

what are motor stereotypies related to in the brain

Answer 18

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

Question 19

does cog performance relate to community vs orphanage raising
what is the confound of this study

Answer 19

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

Question 20

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

Answer 20

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

Question 21

what is the mediating role in deprivation on IQ

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

describe the structure of bronfenbrenners ecological systems

Answer 22

macrosystem - ideology laws, customs culture
exosystem - extended family, workplace, mass media, distant friends
mesosystem - school, fam, peers,

Question 23

what does SES affect in terms of cog abilities

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

how is SES related to chronic stress

Answer 24

poverty = increased home and neighbourhood violence, more disorganised school

Question 25

what is the psychosocial hazard of chronic stress

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

how does SES effect outcomes via language

Answer 26

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

Question 27

describe the study relating language exp verbal abilities and left IFG scores

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

how does SES effect the home environment

Answer 28

engage in more cog stimulating challenging activities with children
hold higher achieving expectations
provide a more stimulating home env

Question 29

what is a more stimulating home env associated with in terms of brain structure

Answer 29

frontoparietal cortical thickness
in 6 - 16 yolds

Question 30

describe the hypothesis that SES may influence the pace of brain dev

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

describe the study and results for how income is logarithmically related to cortical surface area in offspring

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

what is the impact of poverty reduction on 1 year old infants brain activity

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

what is the definition of adversity/ maltreatment

Answer 33

physically emotionally or sexually abusive env including physical and or emotional neglect

Question 34

what is the phenotype of adversity

Answer 34

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

Question 35

how is cingulo opercular network amygdala funcitonal connectivity related to negative life events
what does this in turn predict

Answer 35

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.

Question 36

what is the stress acceleration hypothesis

Answer 36

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

Question 37

how does a predictalbe and safe caregiving env compare with a chaotic one for consequences for the length of the parenting window

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

what is the developmental support hypothesis

Answer 38

parenting (touch food consistency etc.) as signal for pace of development

conditionally adaptivity across the lifespan

Question 39

describe the developmental niche as illustrated by Super and Harkness

Answer 39

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

Question 40

does the childrens characteristics matter in the env in terms of reading outcomes (study)

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

what are virtuous or vicious circles

Answer 41

child to parent and parent to child bidirectional effects can be good or bad

Question 42

what is a vicious circle

Answer 42

aversive difficult temperament

leads to coercive forceful unresponsive parenting

Question 43

what is a virtuous circle

Answer 43

willing open receptive attitude to parent

leads to positive responsive cooperative parenting

Question 44

what are the outcome differences between early internalising and externalising problems

Answer 44

internalising - more positive parenting = less internalising problems 3 years later

externalisng = more negative parenting = more externalising problems 3 years later

Question 45

how is effortful control from the child related to intrusive parenting

Answer 45

effortful control at 30 months = less intrusive parenting

also at 54 months

Question 46

damage has its worse consequences if…

Answer 46

• Damage has worse consequences if it hampers
• Knowledge acquisition (network shaping) early in life
• Knowledge access (established network connections) later in life

Question 47

what is good for slower maturation and enhanced plasticity

Answer 47

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.

Question 48

what is poverty associated with in the brain (oscillations)
and outcomes

Answer 48

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