Technology: its effects on development, and its connection to inhibitory control and prefrontal cortex maturation

The developmental age in children, beginning in preschool, signifies an important period of growth for the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This part of the frontal lobe is responsible for higher order cognitive function, emotional regulation, language, communication as well as inhibitory control. This PFC maturation was studied by Dr. Martha Ann Bell in her paper titled “Relations between frontal EEG maturation and inhibitory control in the prediction of children’s early academic skill.” EEG (Electroencephalography) is a method used to visually represent postsynaptic potentials of a cluster of neurons when they fire simultaneously, and this was the primary way Dr. Bell studied PFC development. During the seminar, Dr. Bell in her presentation highlighted the impact of circumstance/context on the early development of a child’s prefrontal cortex. The subjects in her own study were a unique group due to the very important context of the global pandemic as well as the consequent lockdown that followed it. This leads to follow-up questions – How did the global pandemic alter the course of development in young children? With the lack of social interaction and the forced isolation caused by COVID-19, has this resulted in a dip in academic performance and an overall dip in the development of young children? Does this have rather permanent effects on these children’s transitions into young adulthood and even further along in life?

This is studied in a 2022 article from the Nature journal titled “The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids’ brains?” The author highlights some important magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies done on young children that show abnormalities in brain development, including PFC growth being abnormal compared to usual development before the lockdown. The most at-risk groups according to the study, appeared to be children of color or children from lower income families, contributing to further strengthening the relationship between socioeconomic status and childhood development. The idea of selection bias was considered, as there was a possibility that the parents who brought in these children for the study were perhaps already worried about their child’s development, however comparisons to earlier samples showed no difference between the subjects. There is a noticeable performance “dip,” in young children between the ages of 3 and 5 when it comes to performance on tasks involving higher cognitive functioning, directly related to the prefrontal cortex. This dip is apparent from the very moment the children are invited to perform tasks for the study. Despite the tasks being the same as they were before the pandemic, participants after the pandemic took significantly longer and scored considerably lower on the evaluations involved with the tasks. The effect of masks was also studied as these face coverings hid expressions and speech; however, it didn’t affect the kids’ emotional and language development as various other means are also available to children which can help them understand expressions such as body language. If this context is very different and affects a whole generation of children growing up, it will be interesting to see how these task evaluation results, and PFC development abnormalities will relate to real world applications of academic evaluation as well as cognitive development. This also leaves another question unanswered: Is there going to be a proper recovery from the pandemic and will early development go back to seeing more normal patterns now that we have been somewhat far removed from the lockdown? That will have to be monitored in further studies of PFC development in these crucial years for young children.

PFC development is very closely linked to the context that a child is in and what greater external factor has there been in recent memory than the global pandemic. The aftershocks of it are still being felt today and it should be interesting to observe whether or not things will ever really “bounce back to normal.”

References

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.     Moyer, Melinda, et al. “The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids’ brains.” Nature, vol. 601, Jan. 2022, p. 180-183, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00027-4