Early Childhood Brain Development

Early Experiences and its Relations to Early Childhood Brain Development
There has been increasing evidence that environmental factors play an important role in the process of gene expression (Fox, Levitt & Nelson, 2010). These experiences can enhance or inhibit neural connectivity in what is called sensitive periods (key developmental stages) that in return can have a relation with brain development. Moreover, this paper will present how early experiences can influence the brain architecture. Specifically, the effects that early paternal and/or maternal deprivation, and neglect can have on the brain development in early childhood. For example, the limbic system is in charge of integrating physiological, emotional, and memorial components
As the central nervous system (CNS) is undergoing rapid development there are sensitive periods in which there is a great synaptic plasticity in the brain substrate, leaving templates in the limbic synaptic wiring pattern. To better analyze how these environmental factors can have this relationship with different areas in the brain, studies with rodents, and non-human primates have been used, and these homologies have been then applied to humans. To illustrate, studies in young Octodon degus, a type of rodent that displays similarities in human and non-human primate behavior and development, has shown that repeated deprivation of parental care can alter the limbic neuronal connections that are
1566). Studies in animal models have suggested that PFC susceptibility may have a relation with early neglect. A study in the University of Wisconsin examined the relation between directional organization of the white matter in the PFC and cognitive development in children who suffered early neglect. Researchers used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to measure the white matter organization focusing on the fractional anisotropy (FA). FA is an important measurement that helps track the course and time of normal brain development in children and adolescent. The lower FA, the more diffusely organized white matter is, and it could block the job of the prefrontal cortex in the function of the brain. Furthermore, as researchers predicted, their findings revealed a relationship between early neglect, and lower white matter directional organization in the PFC and in the tracks connecting the temporal lobe, and the PFC. Children who experienced early neglect had lower FA values than the children who did not experienced early neglect. Following other assessments, they found that a decrease in white matter FA in the prefrontal and temporal cortexes has a relationship with the reductions of visual learning, spatial