From Birth to Two: the Neuroscience of Infant Development

The first paragraph introduces Mark Frankel, the director of the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights, and Law program at AAAS. He welcomes everyone to the Neuroscience and Society event on the topic of child development from birth to age 2. Mark notes that the event is sponsored by AAAS and the Dana Foundation. He comments humorously that no infant guests could make it due to scheduling conflicts. Mark then quotes and adds to the Toddler's Creed about possessiveness in toddlers. He also points out photos of his and a colleague's grandchildren. He outlines the program for the evening, which will include 3 speakers on child development topics and a moderated discussion and Q&A session afterwards. The speakers will then join everyone for a reception with further discussion opportunities.

The second paragraph introduces the first speaker, Dr. Pat Levitt, an expert in developmental neurogenetics. Dr. Levitt will discuss factors influencing postnatal infant brain development. He begins by showing illustrations of common misconceptions about child development as a black box process. He then explains the core concepts: early brain architecture builds from basic to complex circuits, experience and environment shape neural connections, critical periods exist, and powerful experiences impact brain wiring. Dr. Levitt explains how genes provide hardware while experiences provide software. He describes the expansion of brain surface area in early years and how neurons grow connections between ages 0-2 to lay the foundation for cognition and behavior.

The third paragraph continues with Dr. Levitt discussing synapse and myelin development in infant and toddler brains. He explains that experiences impact gene regulation through epigenetics over time. A rat study shows how early auditory environment shapes ability to distinguish frequencies. He reiterates how emotional, cognitive and motor skill development are intertwined, aided by caregiver interactions. Various parts of the brain involved in learning, memory and emotions use shared circuitry wired by experiences. Prolonged stress response can damage connections in learning and reasoning areas. But nurturing, stable environments facilitate healthy brain development.

The fourth paragraph has Dr. Levitt stressing that babies are not blank slates at birth, but have existing brain infrastructure to enable sensory-motor experiences for further development. Sensory systems form first followed by simple motor skills then language and higher cognition. The latter takes years to develop executive functions like organization, working memory and impulse control--skills education systems now recognize as vital. Dr. Levitt uses an analogy that genes provide hardware while experiences shape the developmental "software" installed. He reiterates that powerful experiences, positive or negative, strongly influence brain architecture.

The fifth paragraph covers Dr. Levitt's discussion on managing stress for healthy child development. Brief stressful situations trigger physiological responses, which ease once the stress ends or a caring adult comforts the child. But ongoing, unrelieved stress from adversity without adult support causes toxic stress with harmful lifelong impacts. This perpetual high alert state weakens neural connections in learning and reasoning regions when they should be proliferating. But nurturing, stable and engaging childhood environments can prevent toxic stress damages to brain architecture.

The sixth paragraph details a University of Wisconsin study on abused children's differing perception of facial expression changes from anger. Compared to non-abused children, abused kids saw the transition point for anger-to-sadness or anger-to-fearfulness facial changes at 80% rather than 50%. Dr. Levitt explains this likely represents heightened threat response sensitivity from their abuse experience. He again emphasizes that powerful experiences alter brain wiring early on through gene regulation changes. Ending adversity and providing supportive relationships is key to redirecting developmental trajectories.