Neurons in youth
Have you ever wondered why infants can learn foreign languages easily, while older children and parents struggle? Or why your third-grader can fix your computer, but you can barely check your email? The answer, scientists have long known, lies in the way brains develop. All children experience what researchers call “critical periods” —windows early in life when the wiring in their brains is more flexible than that in adults, meaning they are more able to learn new skills. Led by Takao Hensch, professor of neurology and molecular and cellular biology, and funded by a $9 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a group of Harvard researchers from the Harvard Center for Brain Science (CBS) and the departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Chemistry and Chemical Biology is working to map how that brain wiring takes place in an effort to pinpoint the causes of — and...