Brain Development

Look around you; Everyone looks different, on the outside, but have you ever thought that their brain may look different as well? The brain can be changed by many different factors, some of which have negative effects on how your brain functions. These effects could have been and can be prevented, others you, or your parents, have no control over. Preventable or not, the brain physically and functionally is affected by many different factors, some of which include: gender, learning disabilities and Fetal alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The male and female brains have many differences in their structure and functions. Have you ever noticed that men tend to not talk as much as women? Have you ever thought this might be how their brains
are hard-wired? The female brain has verbal centers, which controls the use written and spoken language, on the right and left brain hemispheres; while the males only have one. The male brains also have seven times more gray matter. Gray matter is associated with information and action-processing centers; leading to their tendency to excel in task-focused projects. However, the females have ten times more white matter, which greatly affects the brain's learning. Because of the abundance of white matter in the female brain they can transition between tasks efficiently and that is why women are great multi-taskers. Females have more blood flow through the brain and a higher density of neural connections. On top of that their hippocampus, a part of your brain is mostly associated with memory, is larger than males. (Genders)

Learning disabilities don’t only affect how your brain works but it can also change the physicality of the brain's structures. In persons with learning disabilities, in general, the right side of the brain is larger, meaning the side of your brain in charge of logic and numbers has a decreased size. Not only the right hemisphere of the brain but also the right temporal lobe is larger than the left, the lobes are made up of the hearing and memory centers. The sections of the brain differ in size but the activity in each of the sections can also differ. (Understanding 2)

Disabilities are usually a result of your genetic structure and the diseases that run in your family.
It is not always in your genes; identical twins, meaning they have the exact same DNA, have a 32 percent chance of not sharing a learning disabilities. Fraternal twins have a 60 percent chance of not sharing the disability. During early development, the brain is very sensitive to trauma and toxins. Neurotoxins affect the brain’s development of neural cells. Nutrition in early stages of life is crucial for proper brain development. For example, if you have and lack of iron in early life it is shown that it leads to a decrease in brain development. Malnutrition is also very crucial. It can decrease nerve and brain cells leading to lower IQ, developmental problems, and lower achievement test scores. (Understanding 1-2)

5 percent of all children in North America have ADD and ADHD. Joe Lubar, an innovator in the field of EEG Biofeedback, found that students with ADD and ADHD were producing a low amount of Beta1, a focused attention state. Lubar’s theory was to create a state where the affected individual could control and increase their Beta1 brain waves. The students had any where from 40 to 60 training sessions. After the trainings they were able to control their Beta1 waves. With the higher Beta1 there was a shown increase in IQ scores of the students that suffer from ADD or ADHD. (Understanding
3)

Monastra, a researcher in this field, found that Neurobiofeedback can help these ADD and ADHD students in the long term as well. 100 children ranging from age 6 to 19, all with a ADD or ADHD diagnosis, had their parents received counseling well they were giving academic support, Ritalin, a synthetic drug that stimulates the sympathetic and central nervous systems. Half of the participants also received Neurobiofeedback training. After a year the students were taken of the drug Ritalin. All of the students, the ones with the Neurobiofeedback training and the ones without, all showed improvement during the time on the drug but after the removal of that from their systems, only the ones with the Neurobiofeedback training were able to keep the improvement. (Understanding 3)

Fetal alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), or more specifically Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), has a lot of negative effects on how the brain functions and how the parts of the brain develop.

Overall children that had heavy prenatal alcohol exposure have been shown to have smaller head sizes along with smaller brains. The subcortical structures, the cerebellum, mainly used for anything to do with motor functions, and the parietal lobes, which process taste, temperature, and touch information, are also reduced in size.

Children with FASD use different parts of their brains than children without FASD for the same tasks. It is thought that FASD children may have some brain regions volume or thickness increased to make of the the regions that are lacking the necessary functioning. But differences in certain brain structures do not directly translate to knowledge.

There has been a found decrease in the volumes of basal ganglia, nucleus related to motor control and learning. A structure in the basal ganglia, the caudate nucleus associated with learning, mental flexibility and behavioral inhibition, was found to be smaller in affected children as well.

Lateral brain surface in frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices have an increased thickness of up to 1.2 mm in children with FASD.

FAS diagnosis used to be categorized by facial dysmorphology but that aspect is now not needed for the diagnosis.

White matter in the brains of FASD affected children appeared to be lower; while gray matter, in certain areas, has increased and in some case they have “too much” gray matter leading to increased thickness in the parietal lobes.

Overall the corpus callosum (CC) is one of the most affected region of the brain in children affected with FASD.