Newborns & Brain Development Flashcards
How newborns spend their time
- 16 hrs a day sleeping:
- Quiet or Active Sleep - Other states rest of time
- Crying
- Active Awake
- Alert Awake
- Drowsiness
Sleep in Newborns
- More time in REM sleep
- Important for:
- brain & physical development
- visual & motor development
- learning - Consolidates long-term memories
- frequent in newborns
Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
Death in infants under 1 year old during sleep
- decrease in deaths during 1990s because of Back to Sleep Campaign
- steady since
Triple Risk Model for Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
- Vulnerability
- ex: Lung Development - Developmental Period
- Trigger
- ex: unsafe sleep environment
Bed-sharing Debate
American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines
- infants age < 1 yr share a room, not a bed
Guidelines in New Zealand
- safer bed-sharing
- physiological response
- more research needed
Higher Risk Bed-sharing
- Infants < 4 months
- Premature or low-birth weight
- Parent smokes, drinks, or uses drugs
Principles of Brain Development
- Connections matter
- Less can be more
- Genes and experience have roles
- There are sensitive periods
- It takes a while
- It happens hierarchically
Connections Matter
- Connections form through branching of axons & dendrites in first 2 yrs
- Synaptogenesis
- formation of synapses
- flexibility for learning
Less can be More
- Pruning synapses
- Efficiency & Customization
- Unused removed, Used strengthened
- Perceptual development
Genes and Experience have Roles
- Genes -> exuberant synaptogenesis
- Experience -> pruning, strengthening, creating connections
- Experience-expectant & Experience-dependent plasticity
Sensitive Periods
- Periods brain is especially receptive to particular inputs needed for typical development (experience-expectant plasticity)
- Ex: Cataracts in infants
- If past 1st yr, visual system develops differently
Takes a While
- Myelination of axons takes time and needs to occur
- happens in some areas earlier than other
- insulates for speed in action potentials
Happens Hierarchically
- Essential for life first
- Synaptogenesis and myelination in sensorimotor cortex before prefrontal - Later inhibits earlier
- Motor reflexes in infant first, then areas of brain for voluntary reflexes later
Experience-expectant Plasticity
Genes expect to receive particular environmental input to develop normally
- Ex: visual system needs to see to develop normally
Experience-dependent Plasticity
Genes do not expect environmental input
- Ex: learning to ride a bike
