Based on Hubel and Wiesel's research with newborn kittens, sensory deprivation during a critical developmental period can have lasting effects. In their experiment, one of a kitten's eyes was sutured closed. The area of the visual cortex that would normally receive input from that eye was instead taken over by the open eye. This demonstrates that neural connections present at birth can be lost if they do not receive sensory input, leading to functional blindness in the deprived eye.

Visual Deprivation Leads to Blindness

-Babies born with cataracts that have them removed before 6 months of age tend to grow up with good vision.

-If cataracts are removed after the 6 month sensitive period, person will have long lasting effects on the ability to perceive and recognize faces.

-Inability to recognize faces is mediated by synapse rearrangement in the visual cortex.

Early Exposure to Visual Patterns Fine-Tunes Connections in Visual System

- visual deprivation

- early exposure to visual patterns

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
- Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior

Evolution and Development of the Nervous System

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

Plasticity is how the brain is able to learn and adapt to environments. It exists throughout a person's lifetime, though it tends to be more active in early development when the brain is still forming. Plasticity is one of the key concepts within behavioral neuroscience that affects nearly all systems of the brain and brain functions.

Plasticity

The brain is a highly complex organ that develops in an orderly fashion, as directed by genes and the environment. There are four main stages of brain development that describe how the brain changes in morphology throughout prenatal life. Within these four main stages of brain morphological development, there are six stages describing the development of the nervous system that enable the brain to change in morphology. (Page 194 has images of the morphological changes of the developing brain). 

Stages of Brain Development

Experience and the environment regulate gene expression in brain development by helping to shape behaviors and a person's surroundings and vice versa. This is called epigenetics.

Genes and Experience Guide Brain Development

Individual Differences in Experience Affect Brain Development 

- Memory Impairment

- Alzheimer's Disease 


Brain Changes Due to Aging

The process in which physical/behavioral changes of a population occur over long periods of time. Evolution is a scientific theory that for over the last 150 years, scientists have gathered an overwhelming amount of evidence that supports this theory.  

Evolution 

- Development begins from common structure (dorsal tube)
- Symmetry within brain structures (bilateral symmetry) 
- Construction of spinal nerves with spinal cord (segmentation)
- Communication between brain and spinal cord (hierarchical control) 
- Differentiated neural systems 
- Localized functions

Common Neural Features in Vertebrates

Abnormalities in the development of the nervous system that are influenced by both our genes and the environment. Developmental disorders commonly manifest as behavioral abnormalities.

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