How does an infant's or young child's brain differ from an adult's?

This is a complex question, but quite a lot is known in this field. The easiest approach to take is to consider the differences observed in developmental psychology, and then link these characteristics to the underlying neurology.

A key figure in this field is Piaget, and his work on the so-called 'Theory of Mind' -- this is a good place to start, as it will summarize the typical behaviors and reasoning of infants and how it changes as they develop.

The basic principle is that children begin life with a very ego-centric view of the world, and they are not able to consider things from another's point of view (i.e. they aren't able to put themselves in 'someone else's shoes' - as they develop the child begins to be aware of other people having minds of their own. A classic example might involve a 4 year old boy who has an older sister. If you ask the boy "have you a sister?" In all likelihood the boy will respond "Yes, I have a sister." He knows he has a sister, and the relationship between him and her is just that - she is his sister. If you ask the boy "does your sister have a brother?" The typical response might be "No, she doesn't" He is not capable of understanding his relationship to his sister from her point of view. Wait a few years until the boy is 7, and he will then answer the question with the affirmative - "Yes, my sister has a brother".)

However, why this happens in a particular order of progression, and why many other aspects of child development also occur by a predictable time-table, can be explained by the development of the brain, and its maturation post-birth.

When the brain forms, during embryogenesis, to put it crudely,

it is a mass of neurons that are highly interconnected with each other, and as the brain develops a huge number of the neurons die (apoptotically). Out of those neurons that remain a huge number of the connections that link the neurons to each other (synapses) are severed (synpatic pruning), leaving specific patterns of connections - this is a vital process. you can consider the brain to be 'sculpted' from a large mass of cells into something much more meaningful (like an artist creates a sculpture from a large, shapeless stone).

A fascinating insight into this process is seen in patients suffering from synaesthesia.... In such individuals the pruning process has been atypical and instead of pruning away the neural synapses so as to leave only the appropriate brain regions connected to their respective sensory organs, the wrong brain areas are connected to the wrong sensory organs instead. For example, normally we have our eyes (vision) connected to the visual cortex, allowing us to see light, but a person with synaesthesia may have their eyes connected to the auditory cortex, meaning they don't see light, they hear it! There's lots of fascinating examples of this, all well documented.

Neurons are coated with a fatty insulating sheath called the myeline sheath, that is similar to the rubber insulating on power cords, and it plays a role in improving the specificity of neurons to activate their target neurons efficiently. At birth the myelination of nerves has only begun and it starts in the centre of the brain and works its way towards the extremities. As different brain regions become myelinated, they are said to come 'on-line' and the progress of this myelination correlates with the stages of development at which a child displays new capabilities. For instance, a child begins to crawl at the time that the motor cortex becomes myelinated, and a child will begin to talk when the language centres of the frontal cortex become myelinated, and a child will enjoy peek-a-boo games because its visual system is on-line early on, before the approriate brain regions involved with reasoning and other higher cogitive functions come on-line. Once they do (i.e, are myelinated) then the game ceases to entertain the child.

Interestingly, you can predict what i child can and cant do.understand at a given age by studying the myelination patterns, and from this it has been suggested that children can hear and understand language before they can physically talk, so for some time they are unable to respond to their situations and this may lead to tantrums and the like.

Lastly, the brain stem is one of the last regions to be fully myelinated and this occurs in the early teens during puberty and as this area is involved in motor control, posture and co-ordination (amongst other things) this is thought to cause us to be 'awkward teenagers'.

I hope this makes sense, it's a ramble, but based on solid science so email if you want more info.

Best Wishes

In infants the neurons are not entirely in place at birth. The neurons are still migrating to various areas of the brain where they will make various systems in the brain. Once the neurons are in place they begin to link together and the connections strengthen as they fire more and more. The Myelin sheath that covers the axon of the neuron begins to develop and protects the the neurons and helps for signals travel from neuron to neuron. If a neuron is not used then it is naturally destroyed in what is known as synaptic pruning. So if you don't use it you lose it. This all takes place in the first three to four months of life.

A big difference between brains of children and adults is a child's brain is more plastic. The neurons are able to form new connections more easily that allow for the recovery of lost function due to trauma.

Also child under ten months are able to learn any language. After this time, the phonemes of a language are programed in the child' s brain. We don't really know why, but, for example, people who speak Japanese have difficulty with the r and l sounds in English. The brain is not programmed to hear the distinction so re-creating it is difficult.

There are numerous other differences, but for the most part the differences are in behavior and not structure.

that is merely hypothesis if we progressed any interior the final a hundred,000 years. the main important info is that symbolic artifacts look to start greater or less 50,000 years in the past. that's thru no potential very solid info of an important or unexpected exchange by way of fact it must be culturally found out somewhat than some thing actual. We do look to have replaced some interior the final a hundred,000 years yet you won't observe it with time frames as short as some thousand years. Neanderthals have progressed behaviors and that they are separated from us by way of six hundred,000 years.