CPSY 4343 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Radial Glial Cell, Synaptic Pruning
12 May 2020
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Document Summary
Understand how cognition develops in part by studying how the brain develops. What do we know about the growth of the brain. First, a lot of the brain development occurs prenatally. Figure from lagercrantz and ringstedt (2001), phases of brain growth in relation to behavior. Proliferation- cell division by mitosis (at peak, 250,000 cells/min) At birth, 350g (25% of the average adult brain (1400g)), 3lbs. Most of the 10 to the 11th neurons already formed. Size of neurons and number of synapses. At 2 years: 40,000 new synapses per second. Overproduction, pruning about 10 to the 15th synapses. Not just increases in number of neurons and synapses. Decreases in grey matter (neurons and synapses) If you just look at weight (coarse measure), looks like a simple increase. But more fine-grained analyses reveal dynamic combination of processes. Volume based on mri data/age in years. Mri scans example- grey= white matter and white= grey matter.
