PSY 399 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Coronary Artery Disease, Critical Period, Developmental Psychology

• School: University of Oregon
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 399
• Professor: Jeffrey Measelle

Document Summary

Brain structure is established through series of interactions between genetic influences, environmental conditions and experiences. Each perceptual, cognitive and emotional capability is built by early experiences, as well as auditory/visual. Refinements in neural circuits that cause sensory, emotional and social behaviors are created by experience. Circuits develop based on the foundation already created in the first two months of postfertilization. Major organizing principles of the neocortex are guided by gradients of expressed gene networks that establish an evolutionarily conserved design. Precursors of different functional areas emerge during the time period when neurons are produced and are displayed in the tangential domain. The most fundamental of functional units is the radial column. Each column of cells contains well-organized networks of local circuit and projection neurons. Built in an orderly fashion in which the neurons destined to occupy deep layers are produced, followed by more superficially displaced neurons.