Development of human brain functions

doi:10.1016/S0006-3223(03)00426-8

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 54, Issue 12, 15 December 2003, Pages 1312-1316

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3223(03)00426-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

Aspects of postnatal human brain development are reviewed. The development of brain function has commonly been characterized in terms of the unfolding of a maturational sequence. In contrast, we argue that postnatal functional brain development occurs through a dynamic process of emerging patterns of interactions between different brain regions. Some of these processes may also be characteristic of perceptual and motor skill learning in adults. Possible implications of these views for our understanding of developmental disorders are raised.

Introduction

Understanding the functional development of the human brain is critical for social, educational, and clinical policies. Given its importance, it is surprising that until recently very little was known about the topic; however, with the advent of suitable methods for investigating brain function in infants and children, this area of neuroscience is now making rapid progress. A critical focus of current research is the question of how the development of brain structure (neuroanatomy) relates to the emerging motor, perceptual, and cognitive functions during childhood. Another issue central to this topic concerns the developmental origin of specialized structures and processing within the brain. One perspective on this second issue is that functional specialization of regions of the cerebral cortex arises mainly through intrinsic genetic and molecular mechanisms and that experience merely plays a role in the final fine-tuning. An alternative view is that at least some aspects of human functional brain development involve a prolonged process of functional specialization that is heavily shaped by postnatal experience. A parallel debate to that among developmental neuroscientists rages among developmental psychologists. Some developmental psychologists argue that the human infant is born with innate modules and core knowledge relevant to the physical and social world. In contrast, others propose that many of the changes in behavior observed during infancy are the result of general mechanisms of learning and plasticity. In this article, I will outline these different viewpoints on typical human functional brain development and briefly discuss implications for our understanding of certain developmental disorders and the consequences of perinatal brain damage.

Section snippets

The structural development of the human brain

While the developmental neuroanatomy of the mammalian brain has been researched for decades, at this point relatively few studies have focused on human postnatal development. In general, human brain development appears to follow the same sequence of events observed in other primates but on a slower time schedule. One model of genetic control predicts that the more delayed the general time course of brain development in a species, the larger the relative volume of the later developing structures

The functional development of the human brain

Relating the evidence discussed above on the neuroanatomical development of the brain to the remarkable changes in motor, perceptual, and cognitive abilities during the first decade or so of human life remains a challenging question. Considerable knowledge about the cognitive and perceptual abilities of human infants and children has accrued as a result of behavioral testing (see Johnson and Mareschal 2001 for recent review). While controversies remain, one theme that emerges from these studies

Conclusions and implications for atypical development

The three perspectives on human functional brain development discussed above have different implications for our understanding of developmental disorders and the effects of brain damage over the first years of life. By the maturational view, genetic disorders could potentially lead to focal cortical damage and consequently to selective cognitive, motor, or perceptual disorders. Symptoms of these disorders would first become evident at the normal age of maturation of the regions concerned;

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges financial support from the United Kingdom Medical Research Council (Programme Grant G9715587) and Birkbeck College.

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View full text

Neuroscience perspectivesDevelopment of human brain functions

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

The structural development of the human brain

The functional development of the human brain

Conclusions and implications for atypical development

Acknowledgements

Curr Opin Neurobiol

Curr Opin Neurobiol

Trends Cogn Sci

Neuroimage

Positron emission tomography study of human brain functional development

Ann Neurol

The course of human eventsPredicting the timing of primate neural development

Dev Science

The effects of bifrontal stroke during childhood on visual attentionEvidence from children with sickle cell anemia

Dev Neuropsychol

Differential frontal cortex activation before anticipatory and reactive saccades in infants

Infancy

Specialization of neural mechanisms underlying face recognition in human infants

J Cogn Neurosci

Neuroscience perspectives
Development of human brain functions