Early Adolescence has for a long time been known to be among the most critical time periods of neural development. For the Neuroplasticity of the brain during this period makes it a critical time for all aspects of neurological development.
In Dr. Martha Ann Bell's paper, Relations Between Frontal EEG Maturation and Inhibitory Control in Preschool in the Prediction of Children's of Children's Early Academic Skills, Dr. Bell and her team followed a sample of neurotypical children throughout the first 6 years of their life and early development measuring activity of the Pre- Frontal Cortex (PFC) along with other tests used to measure certain aspects of executive function such as inhibitory control, verbal and academic abilities as a way to measure an individual's cognitive ability in relation to the development of their PFC during early adolescence.
Throughout their study, they first measured activity of the PFC at 10, 24, 36, and 48 months of age in order to obtain a set baseline of PFC development within the sample. At age 4 years old, each subject was then also presented with certain tests used to measure inhibitory control such as Simon Says, the Day- Night Task, and Three Pegs Task with each subject being scored on their level of Inhibitory Control based on the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment. At age 6, the children were then presented a test of academic ability that tested both their abilities in mathematics along with Reading comprehension. The Children were also tested on their verbal ability during their visits at ages 2 years, 4 years, and 6 years where subjects were tested on receptive language ability.
Overall, what the researchers found from this study and these tests, was a positive correlation between the development of PFC and executive function. They found that over time, resting activity with the Prefrontal cortex did increase as it developed within the first couple years of adolescence. They had also found there to be a positive correlation between resting activity within the PFC and Inhibitory Control. Lastly, they found there to be a positive correlation between a subject's Inhibitory control and resting PFC activity with their scores in the academic and verbal ability tests. What these findings suggest is that there is a strong positive correlation between the development of the PFC and the development of Executive Function within an individual.
What is interesting is that another research team in Singapore had performed another study in which they looked at how Early Childhood Adversity (ECA) during early adolescence and preschool affect the development of an individual's brain. The article Childhood Adversity Accelerates Brain Development breaks down the findings of their study and what these results mean in terms of it application to our understanding of neurological development.And what they found was that an early exposure to adversity in a prenatal period could be also be linked to an accelerated rate of neural development. For the brain accelerates in rate of development as a compensatory mechanism to the challenges it faced during childhood having a decreased trajectory for Structure Function Coupling.
As a result, it causes the brain to actually develop at rate too fast and causes the brain to become highly plastic at a much earlier part of life rather than the expected period of 4-6 years old. And during the period of 4-6 years of age, the individual's brain loses the plasticity during this critical time period hindering the development Inhibitory Control and cognitive ability as measured by Dr. Bell's study earlier. This decreased ability for Structure Function Coupling then in turn will cause the individual to show a significant decrease in certain aspects of executive function when compared to those who have not faced ECA.
And so, what these 2 studies have identified is how critical neural development is during certain ages of neurological development and how important it Neuro plasticity is during those time periods.
1) Whedon, Margaret, et al. “Relations between Frontal EEG Maturation and Inhibitory Control in Preschool in the Prediction of Children’s Early Academic Skills.” Brain and Cognition, vol. 146, Dec. 2020, p. 105636, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105636
2) Neuroscience News. (2024, January 15). Childhood adversity accelerates brain development. https://neurosciencenews.com/childhood-adversity-brain-development-25455/
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