How do we learn what to learn? This fundamental question drives the work of Rachel Wu at the University of California, Riverside. Before we can learn anything, we need to know what to pay attention to. From infancy, people are bombarded with distractions that can make that challenging. While there is a wealth of cognitive […]
Girls v. Boys: No Gender Differences in Neural Processing of Math
CNS 2018 – Graduate Student Award Poster It’s a persistent societal stereotype that boys are naturally better at math than girls. Behavioral work has suggested no such gender difference in math abilities in children, and now, for the first time, researchers have used statistical analysis of fMRI scans of young children to also refute this […]
Sizing Up Living Brain Tissue
What if we could reliably measure children’s brain circuits to predict reading ability just as we measure their height and weight to predict physical development? That is a question Brian Wandell has been exploring for the past 30 years – how to use neuroimaging techniques like MRI to quantify the properties and activity of living […]
Early Childhood Neglect Impairs Mechanism for Communicating Across Brain Regions
For the past 15 years, researchers have been studying the effects of neglect on the developing brain through the study of Romanian orphans. The work has spawned dozens of papers, and even a book, detailing the profound consequences of early institutionalization on brain and behavior development. In one of the latest studies, researchers found that […]
Rethinking Time for Independence in Children’s Daily Lives
If your July 4th plans are anything like my family’s, it’s fully loaded with lots of planned activities: parade at 10am, pool at 2pm, BBQ at 4pm, fireworks at 9pm, etc. Little time is left unstructured for the kids to, well, be independent. New research gives me pause to think, though, about whether for July […]
From Learning in Infancy to Planning Ahead in Adulthood: Sleep’s Vital Role for Memory
CNS 2014 Press Release Boston – April 8, 2014 – Babies and young children make giant developmental leaps all of the time. Sometimes, it seems, even overnight they figure out how to recognize certain shapes or what the word “no” means no matter who says it. It turns out that making those leaps could be […]
Changing Children’s Cognitive Abilities Through Targeted Interventions
CNS 2014 Blog Our cognitive fates are not sealed – that was a powerful message that came out yesterday from a session on developmental cognitive neuroscience at the CNS meeting in Boston. In four talks, speakers laid out new ways neuroscience findings can help children learn, even if they are experiencing challenges because of a […]
Children Need to Learn Context to Know When to Stop
CNS 2014 Blog: Q&A with Christopher Chatham It’s happens to all of us: times when we simply cannot stop ourselves mid-action, whether running a yellow (or red) light, making an inappropriate comment, or reaching for our buzzing phone during dinner. Most of the time, adults can overcome these impulses. Children, however, are notoriously different – […]
How Toddlers Process Environmental Feedback
A young child’s first snow is not only fun but also a rich learning experience – figuring out that the driveway is slippery, that snow will mush in your hand, and just how much snow is needed to build a snowman. Each of these steps requires children to take in external feedback about the environment, […]
Sleeping for Learning: How Children and Adults Maximize Their Memory Potential
It’s not quantity but quality that matters when it comes to how much sleep strengthens our memories. A growing body of research is finding that specific stages of sleep shape particular types of learning in the brain. Whether for children napping or for older adults catching z’s at night, we all rely on sleep to […]
