11
votes
Accepted
How do we know human brain development stops around age 25?
Based on a review by Kolb et al, 2012, it seems that "the brain is finished developing by 25" refers to the point when synaptic pruning in the cerebral cortex levels off, on average. However, the ...
- 536
5
votes
Do ADHD drugs harm the brain?
This section from the Wikipedia page on Neuroplasticity indicates (emphasis mine)
Reviews of MRI studies on individuals with ADHD suggest that the
long-term treatment of attention deficit ...
- 300
4
votes
Variation in prefrontal cortex development
In the last 20 years or so, a growing amount of neuroimaging research has demonstrated that adolescence is a period of continued brain growth and change, challenging longstanding assumptions that the ...
- 12.3k
4
votes
Do ADHD drugs harm the brain?
If one was to take a 30mg dose once a day for 50+ years, would it damage brain function at all?
You ask a very good question, but I'm going to rephrase it for you: Is the chronic administration of ...
- 1,247
4
votes
Accepted
Death caused by "Failure to Thrive" (FTT)
The reason for failure to thrive other than insufficient nutrition, can be suppressed growth hormone secretion due to emotional neglect. In the following example, both the emotional neglect and ...
- 454
3
votes
how does our brain knows the simialrities between anything?
The brain has the abilities to do a lot of marvelous things:
It can convert electromagnetic waves that reach the eyes into spectacular visions of faces, people, trees, animals, houses, etc.
It can ...
- 1,845
3
votes
Body temperature increasing when trying to solve difficult problems
The "overheat" (flushing of the skin) you experience is a common-enough reaction to stress, part of the fight-or-flight response. It's not uncommon for people to experince it during exams; generally ...
2
votes
Why can't we do the things we know instantaneously?
Motor learning is a complex process (Wolpert & Flanagan, 2010). Oftentimes the process is broken up in elements (Weaver, 2015):
a cognitive phase;
an associative phase;
an autonomous phase.
The ...
- 20.7k
2
votes
When does the brain stem appear in humans?
I'm not sure this question is answerable at that specificity. There isn't a discrete point in time where the cells are definitively a brain stem rather than a precursor structure such the bulge ...
- 1,478
2
votes
What are the effects of antipsychotic medication on brain volume?
Yes, there are different results published because it is an open research question. It is a tricky question to figure out due to substantial confounding factors so some results might skew for and some ...
2
votes
Is cortical magnification in the visual system related to synaptic pruning, or is it a separate developmental or learning process?
No, it's not due to synaptic pruning. If it were due to synaptic pruning babies would have better vision(esp. Peripheral) but that is not the case. Babies only have better hearing.
No, it is not ...
- 21
2
votes
Accepted
Modelling the Human Brain as a directed graph
Axo-axonic synapses and dendrodendritic synapses exist, and are not errors. They are particularly common in invertebrate nervous systems but are also found between particular cells in mammalian brains....
- 7,735
1
vote
why are all human brains so similar in brain structure, specialization of their parts and functioning?
Up until the 70s and 80s, there were decades of hot debate about whether some phenotype such as brain structure or some behavior were caused by genes or by environment. Wikipedia has a decent summary ...
- 1,478
1
vote
How do we know human brain development stops around age 25?
In the book The Naked Ape Desmond Morris (a zoologist and perhaps evolutionary psychologist) says that human brain stops developing when the skull is fully developed, which is around age 25. The ...
- 1,791
1
vote
Are there any long term cognitive impairments from prolonged period reduced sleep?
Wikipedia has some good information on this issue. Search for:
Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance
In summary, 'yes', sleep deprivation can have a multitude of negative ...
- 424
1
vote
How does the brain encode order of information in sentences/stories?
Similar to your other question, this one reduces to "what are the neural mechanisms behind language?", which is very much a work in progress.
The only neural model of language that I currently know ...
- 8,853
1
vote
What are the effects of antipsychotic medication on brain volume?
Dopamine availability can increase neurogenesis/neuroplasticity in adult brains. Antipsychotic medications, therefore, may have the opposite effect.
Borta, A., & Höglinger, G. U. (2007). Dopamine ...
- 111
1
vote
Does logical thinking or counting develop first in children?
Logical Thinking is a very broad class of phenomena whereas counting is a very specific one. Logical Thinking dependes on the invidual having logical operations, which follow a course of development ...
- 11
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible