Human brain development highlights the significance of learning experiences during the first two to four years and a stage where memories are believed to be short term and quickly forgotten, though not all. This is known as infantile insomnia.
Human brain development in stages
Just like the body visibly takes shape as time moves on, so does the functions of the brain and how it develops from birth up until the stage of full mental functionality, which in fact, does not get fully stimulated until it reaches a certain age.
In a study published by researchers from the New York University’s Center for Neural Science, the researchers aimed their study at determining the various stages of the human brain and its functional development.
“What our findings tell us is that children’s brains need to get enough and healthy activation even before they enter pre-school,” says study lead Cristina Alberini, a professor in NYU’s Center for Neural Science. “Without this, the neurological system runs the risk of not properly developing learning and memory functions.”
Findings were highly promising with lab rats
Focusing their attention on mechanisms of infantile memory among rats, where the researchers examined memories 17 days after birth, which is equivalent to human age of three years. This is also the stage where episodic memories are created and when infantile amnesia is likely to occur.
The researchers believe that this is in fact the stage where adults would be unable to retrieve episodic memories the occurred during this period of infancy.
They also compared this with the rat’s infantile memory at 24 days old and relatively the same period equivalent to roughly six to nine years of human age where long term memories are likely to be retained and recalled.
The memory stimulus ranged from a very mild foot shock when entering a ‘shock’ compartment and a separate ‘safe’ compartment within the same box , with their heads turned opposite the compartment entrance. The lab rats were then made to choose between the two compartments after 10 seconds and the results were telling.
The older rats were able to retain the location of the ‘safe’ compartment and were quick to stay away from the ‘shock’ compartment. However, the younger rats could not tell which one would have been the safe haven for them.
However, regardless of how the younger ones were able to keep a trace of the memory of being shocked through some faint memories of the shock treatment through the neurological response of being able to develop learning through all experiences in early life but were not able to recall how it actually occurred.
“Early in life, while the brain cannot efficiently form long-term memories, it is ‘learning’ how to do so, making it possible to establish the abilities to memorize long-term,” explains one of the researchers. “However, the brain needs stimulation through learning so that it can get in the practice of memory formation—without these experiences, the ability of the neurological system to learn will be impaired.”
They added that the findings of the study will be able to help future research on brain development and learning disabilities.
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