Download Brain Development and Adolescence: Myths and Facts and more Lecture notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! The Learning Brain DR JENNY WYNN Fact or fiction? We are born with all of the neurons that we need and never grow any more Almost all of the brain’s growth and development occurs before the age of 3 years After the age of 5 years, neurons start to die Regions of the brain
Frontal lobe
Executive functions,
thinking, planning,
organising and
problem solving,
emotions and
behavioural control,
personality
Motor cortex
Movement Sensory cortex
Sensations
Parietal lobe
Perception, making
sense ofthe world,
arithmetic, spelling
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ILASÀÌ
LP
Temporal lobe \
Memory, understanding, \
language
Sat: 05S5
Apical
Dendrites
it
mc,
Postsynaptie
Dendrites
Receptor sites
È _ Mitochondria
Neurotransmitters
[ Synapse |
Making connections Synaptic density – number of connections Synaptogenesis – increase in synaptic density Synaptic pruning – frequently used connections made stronger, weaker ones eliminated Visual cortex – adult synaptic density reached at 10 years Frontal cortex - adult synaptic density reached at 18 years Windows of opportunity Adolescence is a major period of brain development Many sensitive, sometimes critical, periods Brain finds alternative pathways Infinite capacity for new learning An enriched environment Threshold of sensory stimulus Effects of complex environment endure through life It is never too late to learn (although it takes you longer)! Changes at puberty Multiple tasks Decision making Selective attention Problem solving Pubertal dip The need for sleep “Tens of thousands of children will start school at 10am in a ground-breaking new experiment by Oxford University to see if later classes can improve exam results. GCSE students from more than 100 schools across England will take part in the four-year project based on scientific evidence which suggests teenagers are out of sync with traditional school hours. A pilot study at Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside in 2009 found that starting an hour later improved grades in core subjects by 19 per cent. Results are expected in 2018.” The need for sleep
>» https://
www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/research/sleep-circadian-neuroscience-institute/rese
arch-projects/teensleep
Risk taking To be successful we need to take risks Can be linked to self-esteem In teenagers, decisions more about the feeling than the consequences Risky business: Alcohol Drugs Smoking Sexual activity 0F TWO MIND Experiments with split-brain patients have helped to
illuminate the lateralized nature of brain function.
Split-brain patients have undergone surgery to cut A word is flashed briefly to the Now a word is flashed to the left
the corpus callosum, the main bundle of neuronal right field of view, and the patient field of view, and the patient is
fibres connecting the two sides of the brain. is asked what he saw. asked what he saw.
Cc) ‘ Visual
fields
Input from
the left field
of view is
processed
by the right Corpus
hemisphere callosum
and vice
versa.
Because the left hemisphere is dominant The right hemisphere cannot share information
for verbal processing, the patient's with the left, so the patient is unable to say
Left \ Î y 7 Right answer matches the word. what he saw, but he can draw it.
hemisphere 2 hemisphere ____NcCcC-'Poa
Implications for education Education for adolescents is vital Internal control Critical evaluation Self-paced learning Range of active and passive experiences Multi-sensory (but not too much)
