The Brain Chapter 5 Section I learned

I learned that by the time it is born, the infant that began as a single cell is estimated to have a brain that contains approximately 100 billion nerve cells or neurons. Extensive brain development continues after birth, through infancy and later. Because the brain is still developing so rapidly in infancy, the infants head should be protected from falls or other injuries and the baby should never be shaken. Shaken baby syndrome, which includes brain swelling and hemorrhaging, affects hundreds of babies in the United States each year. At birth the newborns brain is about 25 percent of its adult weight, by their second birthday it is about 75 percent of its adult weight. But the brains areas do not mature uniformly. We are most concerned with the portion farthest from the spinal cord, known has the forebrain, which includes the cerebral cortex and several structures beneath it. The cerebral cortex covers the forebrain like a wrinkled cap. It has to half or also known as hemispheres. The four main areas, called lobes, in each hemisphere, they usually work together, each has a somewhat different primary function. The frontal lobes are involved in voluntary movement, thinking, personality, emotion, memory, sustained attention, and intentionally or purpose. Occipital lobes function in vision, the temporal lubes have an active role in hearing, language processing and memory. And parietal lobes play important roles in registering spatial location, maintaining attention and administering motor control. To some extent, the type of information handled by neurons depends on whether they are in the left or right hemisphere of the cortex. The specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex or the other is lateralization. At birth, the hemispheres of the cerebral cortex already have started to socialize: they show greater electrical brain activity in the left hemisphere that the right hemisphere when they are listening to speech sounds. I learned about changes in the neurons, is a nerve cell that handles information processing. Extending from the neurons cell body are two types of fibers known as axons and dendrites. The axon generally carries signals away from the cell body and dendrites carry signals toward it. A myelin sheath, which is a layer of fat cells, encases many axons. Myelination is the process of encasing axons with fat cells, begins prenatally and continues after birth, even into adolescence. Neuroconstuctivist view, (a) biological processes and environmental experiences influence the brains development; (b) the brain has plasticity and is influenced by contexts; (c) development of the brain is closely linked with the childs cognitive development. The neuroconstuctivist view emphasizes the importance of interactions between experience and gene expression in the brains development, in much the same way that the epigenetic view proposes.