Health Sciences 2700A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Prefrontal Cortex, Synaptic Pruning, Cerebral Cortex
18 Jan 2020
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Document Summary
The brain - the second change begins around age 17 years and continues into early adulthood, when the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex (area that controls logic and planning) are developing. Years ago we assumed that most of the brain development happens in the first few years of life - this is not true, lots is happening in adolescence. However, we now can look at the living human brain development. One of the brain regions that changes the most dramatically in adolescence is the prefrontal cortex. Involved in in inhibiting inappropriate behaviour, social interaction, etc. Grey matter peaks in prefrontal cortex in adolescence (sooner for girls than boys) but then declines after (a good thing) Synaptic pruning happens in the prefrontal cortex. Functional mri - looking at functional activity. Medial prefrontal cortex activity in social cognition tasks decreases during adolescence in 9 developmental (mri studies)
