PSYC 3404 Lecture Notes - Abusive Head Trauma, Apgar Score, Hypertension

• School: Northeastern University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3404
• Professor: Christina Cipriano

Document Summary

Newborns are born with 100-200 billion neurons, but few connections. Synaptic pruning: unused neurons are eliminated, allows for building of more elaborate connections. Myelin: made of lipids, coats neural connections shaken. Syndrome: shaking can lead to brain rotation within skull, blood vessels can tear, causing severe medical problems. The degree to which a developing structure is modifiable by way of experience. Sleep for infants: ~16-17 hours of sleep per day, usually in 2 hour increments. Cyclic pattern while sleeping babies will experience irregular heart rate, By about 16 weeks, should be sleeping in 6 hour increments. By 1 year, should sleep through the night. Sids: leading cause of death among infants, affects 1 in 1000 infants. Occurs when normal pattern of sleep is disrupted. Birth-weight babies, low apgar score babies, smoking mother, some brain defects, Babies should sleep on back ("back to sleep"), do not swaddle.