27 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Why the Brain Takes So Much Time and Effort
The brain’s chief job description—yours, mine, and your hopelessly adorable children’s—is to help our bodies survive another day. The reason for survival is as old as Darwin and as young as sexting: so we can project our genes into the next generation. Will a human willingly overcome self-interest to ensure the survival of his or her family’s genes into the next generation? Apparently, yes. Enough of us did hundreds of thousands of years ago that we grew up to take over the Serengeti, then...
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Babies must be born before they are ready to prevent killing the mother, thus parenting became an evolutionary strategy in humans.
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...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.
