27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Heritable IQ is Boosted by Environment, Just Like Height
hough it’s not easy to pinpoint the causes of the rise in IQ scores, it’s no paradox that a heritable trait can be boosted by changes in the environment. That’s what happened with height, a trait that also is highly heritable and has increased over the decades, and for some of the same reasons: better nutrition and less disease. Brains are greedy organs, consuming about a fifth of the body’s energy, and they are made of fats and proteins that are demanding for the body to produce. Fighting of... 1 
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notes24 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
How to Improve Self-Control in Schools
Make school more demanding for all students
In its coverage of U.S. secondary education, the popular press tends to focus on two relatively small groups: students headed for elite colleges (many of whom are under tremendous stress and pressure) and students at risk for dropping out (many of whom come from the most disadvantaged communities).
These stories are important to tell, but they leave out the vast majority of students, who don't fall into either of these extremes. These high school st...Folksonomies: self control
Folksonomies: self control
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notes28 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
How the Adverse Affects of Stress Were Discovered
Lots of research has gone into trying to understand how maternal stress affects brain development. And we have begun to answer this question at the most intimate level possible: the level of cell and molecule. For this progress we mostly can thank the klutzy researcher Hans Selye. He is the founder of the modern concept of stress. As a young scientist, Selye would grind up “endocrine extracts”, which presumably contained active stress hormones, and inject them into rats to see what the rats w... 1 notes
notesA clumsy researcher stressed out his lab rats, causing infections and loss of sleep.
27 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Development of the Human Brain
Two types of cells are important here. The first type, glial cells, make up 90 percent of the brain cells inside your child’s head. They give the brain its structure and help the neurons correctly process information. It’s a good name; glial is a Greek word for glue. The second type of cell is the familiar neuron. Though they do a lot of your child’s thinking, neurons make up only about 10 percent of the total number of brain cells. That’s probably where we get the myth that you use only 1... 1 notes
notesA fascinating description of a process that begins before birth and continues into our 20s.
24 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Mozart and Intelligence
One of the more startling findings about early enrichment is the effect of music. You can hardly pick up a newspaper without seeing some kind of reference to how Mozart makes people smarter. The governor of Georgia recently proposed spending $105,000 of state money to provide every newborn baby with a compact disc of classical music, citing its positive effects on brain development and spatial and mathematical skills. What is it about classical music that is so good for mental function, and a... 1 notes
notesWhy we suspect playing Mozart for infants will make them more intelligent.
20 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of Tactile Experience in Infants
Nonetheless, our early touch experiences determine the extent of possible tactile sensitivity. They also play a surprisingly potent role in the overall quality of brain development. We have already seen in Chapter 2 how rats raised in a highly enriched environment develop a thicker cerebral cortex and are actually cleverer than rats raised in a standard laboratory environment. A good share of this enriching experience involves tactile sensation. When young rats are provided with new toys, the...
1 Rats provided with a variety of constantly changed toys to play with and those touched by their mothers have larger brains and are more cognitively prepared for the world.
19 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of Nutrition in the Developing Mind
In the case of a mother's more general nutritional status—her tota caloric intake—the brain is actually less sensitive during the first three to four months of gestation. In spite of its massive developmental changes, the fetus grows surprisingly little in size during this period, so its growth is not very dependent on the mother's diet. (This is probably no accident, since women are often unable to consume many calories because of first-trimester nausea.) Beginning around midway through gest...There is a crucial period in fetal development where nutrition is of the utmost importance to the growing brain. If these nutritional needs are not met, then the baby's intelligence may suffer.
19 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Mother's Hormones Impact a Child's Propensity for Shyness
As we learn more about maternal hormones and their influence on the developing brain, scientists are beginning to propose actual biological mechanisms for the kind of folk prophecies that have been around for ages. One recent study, for instance, suggests that a child's shyness is determined, in part, by maternal hormone fluctuations during gestation. Researchers who interviewed several thousand preschoolers in both the United States and New Zealand noted a significant relationship between th... 1 notes
notesThere appears to be a correlation between the amount of sunlight to which a mother is exposed mid-pregnancy and how shy her children are later on.
19 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Effects of Smoking on the Fetus
Most women also realize that smoking is bad during pregnancy. Unfortunately, it can be a very hard habit to give up, even for the best-intentioned parent. Smoking is not as detrimental to fetal brain development as heavy alcohol drinking, but it acts on many other organ systems. like the heart and lungs, that compromise the baby's health in a lasting way. Babies born to heavy smokers are substantially smaller than babies born to nonsmokers, averaging about half a pound lighter. In fact, smoki... 1 notes
notesThe evidence suggests that smoking has longterm cognitive effects on children due to compromised brain development in the womb.
