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Researchers at King’s College London first identified brain activity in a newborn when they are learning an association between different types of sensory experiences.
Using advanced MRI and robotic scanning techniques, the researchers found that a child’s brain activity can be changed through these associations, shedding new light on the possibility of rehabilitating children with injured brains and promoting the development of lifelong skills. like speech, language, and movement.
Recently published in Cerebral cortex, the researcher relies on the fact that learning associations are a very important part of children’s development, but the activity within the brain that was responsible for learning these associations was unknown and not studied.
Lead researcher, Dr Tomoki Arichi, said it is the first time that it has been shown that children’s brain activity can be altered through associative learning and, in particular, brain responses are associated with particular stimuli. case, the sound.
“We also found that when a child is learning, they are actually activating many different parts of the brain, so they are starting to incorporate the ‘larger network’ within the brain that is important for processing activity,” he said. .
A total of 24 children were studied by ringing them the sound of a tinkling bell for six seconds, along with gentle motion induced by a custom 3D printed robot tied to their right hand.
During this time, the resulting brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After 20 minutes of learning an association between the two types of stimuli, the children heard the sound on their own and the resulting brain activity was compared to that seen before the learning period.
Dr Arichi said the findings not only provide new insights into what’s happening inside the baby’s normal brain when he’s learning, but they also have implications for the injured brain.
If a child was unable to process movement, or the movement is not associated with normal activity within the brain (as may be the case with a child with cerebral palsy), doctors may then be able to induce that. activity by learning an association with sound and using sound simulation to try to amplify and rehabilitate their movement.
With our results it raises the possibility of trying to do something to help with this through targeted stimuli and learning associations. “
Dr Tomoki Arichi, lead researcher of the study, King’s College London
“It is possible to induce activity within the part of the brain that normally processes movement, for example, simply by using a single sound. This could be used in conjunction with rehabilitation or to try to guide brain development early in life. “.
When babies are born, they have a new sensory experience around them that is completely different from what they would have experienced inside the womb.
They must therefore quickly begin to understand their environment and the relationships between the different things that happen, which is even more important in children who have brain injuries.
Researchers sought to understand how children begin to learn these key relationships between different types of sensory experiences and how this contributes to the early stages of overall brain development.
“A child’s brain constantly learns associations and changes its activity all the time so it can respond to the new experiences around it,” said Dr. Arichi.
“In terms of influencing patients and interpreting them in a larger context, this means we should be thinking about how we could help with developmental brain disorders early in life because we know that experience is constantly shaping the newborn baby. brain activity “.
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