Essay: The Child’s Brain

The Child’s Brain

A child's brain is a magnificent engine for learning. A child learns to crawl, then walk, run and explore. A child learns to reason, to pay attention, to remember, but nowhere is learning more dramatic than in the way a child learns language. As children, we acquire language -- the hallmark of being human. In nearly all adults, the language center of the brain resides in the left hemisphere, but in children the brain is less specialized. Scientists have demonstrated that until babies become about a year old, they respond to language with their entire brains, but then, gradually, language shifts to the left hemisphere, driven by the acquisition of language itself. But if the left hemisphere becomes the language center for most adults, what happens if in childhood it is compromised by disease? Brain seizures such as those resulted by epilepsy and Rasmussen's syndrome, have a devastating effect on brain development in some children. Minor developmental delays early in life, like beginning to walk later than average, may forecast alcoholism, according to a new study. The authors suggest that such problems with early childhood brain development may in fact contribute to the disease.
The brain's cerebellum plays a crucial role in motor development and the control of fine, coordinated movements such as walking and playing musical instruments. Some researchers have proposed that the region is also involved in impulse control and that a dysfunctional cerebellum may therefore predispose to addiction. This theory led pharmacologist Ann Manzardo of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, to ask whether variations in early motor performance might predict alcoholism later in life. To test the theory, Manzardo's team analyzed data from a well-known Danish alcoholism study that followed 330 baby boys — two thirds of whom had alcoholic fathers — through their 40s. Looking at motor development and the frequency of alcoholism in the subjects at age 30, Manzardo and her team discovered that 77% of the alcoholics had not yet been able to walk at 12 months of age, compared to 43% of nonalcoholics. Because the cerebellum is involved in motor development, Manzardo says the region may be an additional marker for alcoholic tendencies. As such, she says, "we need to focus more on early childhood brain development to see if there are contributing factors to the development of alcoholism."