Fetal brain & cognitive development

[☭proletarian☭]

This seemed relevant, given the discussion in another thread

ABSTRACT

The human brainstem is fashioned around the 7th week of gestation and matures in a caudal to rostral arc thereby forming the medulla, pons, and midbrain. The medulla mediates arousal, breathing, heart rate, and gross movement of the body and head, and medullary functions appear prior to those of the pons which precede those of the midbrain. Hence, by the 9th gestational week the fetus will display spontaneous movements, one week later takes its first breath, and by the 25th week demonstrates stimulus-induced heart rate accelerations. As the pons, which is later to mature, mediates arousal, body movements, and vestibular and vibroacoustic perception, from around the 20th to 27th weeks the fetus responds with arousal and body movements to vibroacoustic and loud sounds delivered to the maternal abdomen. The midbrain inferior-auditory followed by the superior-visual colliculi is the last to mature, and in conjunction with the lower brainstem makes fine auditory discriminations, and reacts to sound with fetal heart rate (FHR) accelerations, head turning, and eye movements--around the 36th week. When aroused the fetus also reacts with reflexive movements, head turning, FHR accelerations, and may fall asleep and display rapid eye movements. Thus fetal-cognitive motor activity, including auditory discrimination, orienting, the wake-sleep cycle, FHRs, and defensive reactions, appear to be under the reflexive control of the brainstem which also appears capable of learning-related activity.

Brain-Mind.com - environment, Neuroplasticty, neuroscience, child, development, memory, emotion, paranormal, health

 

[Old Rocks]

Learning seems to start far earlier than we had thought.

Language learning may start in womb

From their first days, babies cry dif*fer*ently de*pend*ing on the lan*guage their par*ents speak—show*ing some learn*ing has al*ready started in the womb, ac*cord*ing to a new stu*dy.



From their first days, new*borns cry dif*fer*ently de*pend*ing on the lan*guage their par*ents speak—show*ing some learn*ing has al*ready started in the womb, ac*cord*ing to a new stu*dy. (Im*age cour*tesy Vt. Dept. of Chil*dren & Fam*ilies)


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New*borns are cap*able of “dif*fer*ent cry melodies,” and they tend to pro*duce “mel*o*dy pat*terns... typ*i*cal for the am*bi*ent lan*guage they have heard dur*ing their fe*tal life, with*in the last tri*mes*ter,” said Kath*leen Wermke of the Un*ivers*ity of Würzburg in Ger*ma*ny, one of the sci*en*tists in*volved.

“These da*ta sup*port the im*por*tance of hu*man in*fants’ cry*ing for seed*ing lan*guage de*vel*op*ment.”

The find*ings were pub*lished on*line Nov. 5 in the re*search jour*nal Cur*rent Bi*ol*o*gy.

Hu*man fe*tus*es can mem*o*rize sounds from the ex*ter*nal world by the last tri*mes*ter of preg*nan*cy, with a par*tic*u*lar sen*si*ti*vity to mel*o*dy con*tour in both mu*sic and lan*guage, ear*li*er stud*ies found. New*borns pre*fer their moth*er’s voice over oth*ers and per*ceive the emo*tion*al con*tent of mes*sages con*veyed via in*tona*t*ion in ma*ter*nal speech.

Their pre*ference for the sur*round*ing lan*guage and abil*ity to tell apart dif*fer*ent lan*guages and pitch changes are based pri*marily on mel*o*dy, Wermke said.

Al*though pre*na*tal ex*po*sure to na*tive lan*guage was known to in*flu*ence new*borns’ per*cep*tion, sci*en*tists had thought that the sur*round*ing lan*guage af*fect*ed sound pro*duc*tion much lat*er, the re*search*ers said, but it now seems that’s not so.

 

[Old Rocks]

Hmmm...... Now what on earth did that?

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I'll be honest... I'll read your post when it's not full of asterisks...