Neuroimaging and your child's brain: A guide for the science-minded

© 2010 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

They're the technologies that give the states "snapshots" of the encephalon at work:

Functional neuroimaging shows us what parts of the encephalon "lite upwardly," or get active, when we are thinking, learning, or feeling. And this permits researchers to map the brain—pinpointing where specific kinds of information get processed.

Reading music? A tiny spot at the dorsum of your head–the right superior parietal cortex–becomes active (Schön et al 2002).

Feeling guilty? Several brain regions light up, including the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), an area associated with social emotions and the ability to consider another person'south perspective (Burnett at al 2009).

This sort of information can lead us to a new understanding of many things, including these:

Empathy in children

"I feel your pain" might be more than than a effigy of voice communication.

Neuroimaging studies suggest that the regions of the brain involved in processing offset-mitt experiences of hurting are too activated when we observe pain in others. And empathy isn't simply an adult miracle. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate that children'south brains work the aforementioned mode.

What'south going on in the minds of babies?

Psychologists have invented many ingenious ways to detect what pre-verbal infants are thinking. Neuroscience offers yet another approach: Lookout brain activity to see if babies can distinguish betwixt unlike kinds of stimuli.

Using neuroimaging, researchers found that 3-calendar month onetime baby brains could tell the difference betwixt 4 objects and 8 objects! Were the babies consciously thinking about quantity? We tin't be sure. But the results suggest that–at some level–baby brains possess "number sense."

What'south different about the brains of kids with impairments and behavioral problems?

Equally neuroscientists build upwards a picture of normal brain office, we go a meliorate thought of how the brains of kids with various problems (like dyslexia, ADHD, or autism) may differ from the brains of normally-developing kids.

And understanding these differences may propose what sorts of remedial instruction would most benefit kids.

For example, some kids suffer from dyscalculia–a learning disability in mathematics. What's going wrong in the brain? You might assume there is something wrong with the part of the brain that counts and performs precise calculations.

But brain imaging studies suggest something else.

When kids with dyscalculia were presented with a series of items to count, their brain activity was indistinguishable from that of normal kids.

The real encephalon deviation showed up when kids had to use their "number sense," an intuitive feeling for the relative magnitude of numbers.

When kids with dyscalculia had to brand less precise, more than qualitative judgments–estimating quantity without actually counting–their brains responded differently (Kucian et al 2006).

Mayhap, then, kids with dyscalculia would do good from exercises that assist them develop a meliorate number sense. Time to come behavioral studies can examination this hypothesis.

But in that location is a nighttime side…

People are terribly impressed by encephalon inquiry, so much so that we sometimes suspend our sense of skepticism when we hear nigh new studies.

In some pop accounts, brain research is equated with a sort of mind-reading.

Neuroimaging is regarded as a direct window into the mind—revealing if an individual is smart or slow, happy or depressed, compassionate or self-absorbed.

So it seems to follow that brain imaging studies can replace other approaches to understanding the mind. Why talk to your subjects, if you can read their minds? Why give people tasks to solve, if brain imaging can tells us how clever they are?

It may also seem that encephalon studies are especially "true" or authoritative. If the mind is the product of the encephalon, then isn't neurological research more important and relevant than psychological research? Isn't neurology more than scientific?

In fact, all of these notions are incorrect.

Neuroimaging isn't mind-reading

Neuroimaging studies tell the states about the average brain. They may tell united states of america that a item pattern of activeness is characteristic of well-nigh people suffering from depression. Or that another blueprint is found in most kids with dyslexia.

But the patterns don't sort perfectly. If you tried to predict what existent people were like on the basis of encephalon activity alone, you'd make a lot of mistakes.

For example, when researchers tried using neuroimaging to detect deception, 33% of people telling the truth were misidentified as liars (Kozel et al 2010).

Measuring brain activity is no more "scientific" than measuring behavior

Neuroimaging is an heady tool for agreement encephalon mechanisms. Information technology enriches our understanding of the way brains process information.

But information technology'south wrong to think that brain enquiry is going to trump, or supervene upon, more than traditional approaches to understanding behavior.

And people are mistaken if they recall that brain research is somehow more rigorous, scientific, or probable to yield upwards "the truth."

The reason? Knowing how the brain looks doesn't tell u.s.a. how people retrieve or deport. Not by itself.

To translate brain images of brain activity, we need to know what people are doing while the brain activity occurs. We demand to measure their actual performance in the real globe.

And neuroimaging tin can't tell us which interventions brand kids think, experience, or behave meliorate.

Do naps help kids amend memorize information? You could effort comparing encephalon activity in well-rested and sleep-deprived kids.

Only knowing patterns of brain activity won't tell yous how much a child remembers. To detect that out, you have to measure behavior. Inquire kids questions. Give them tasks to perform.

So brain enquiry doesn't return other fields–like cognitive psychology–obsolete. On the contrary. Nosotros need behavioral data to brand sense of the brain data.

And science? What makes a study rigorous and authoritative—a reliable source of information—isn't the tools you use. What makes a study "good science" is the style it's designed and executed.

The right manner to report the mind

Neuroimaging doesn't make a report scientific. It'due south merely a tool—similar measuring claret pressure—that scientists can utilize.

And when it comes to answering applied questions—like identifying the best educational programs or parenting tactics—neuroimaging isn't especially helpful. At least not at present.

To run across what I mean, allow's do a thought experiment.

Suppose you wanted to know if mild thirst–low levels of dehydration–makes kids perform worse on academic tasks.

Practise thirsty kids take more trouble solving puzzles?

The most straightforward approach is to test the cognitive performance of mildly dehydrated kids.

You might begin by getting yourself a grouping of kids and making them sweat in the sauna. And so you lot'd randomly assign each child to one of two treatments.

• In the WATER-SUFFICIENT status, kids drink enough water to supervene upon what they've lost through perspiration.

• In the DEHYDRATED condition kids are given a fiddling water, but not enough to replace what they've lost.

Next, you'd ask the kids to work on some puzzles. You'd make sure that the kids didn't know what your hypothesis was. You'd besides brand certain that the people administering the tests didn't know which treatment each kid received.

When you were done, you lot would compare the 2 groups. If the dehydrated kids performed more poorly on the puzzles, you'd do a statistical analysis. What is the hazard that the experiment would turn out this mode due to pure run a risk?

If the statistics advise that the probability of a fluke event is pocket-size, you take a rather persuasive study.

This approach–a randomized, controlled experiment–is the gold standard of scientific investigation. Did nosotros utilise neuroimaging? No. Only we could.

Experiment replicated…with brains

Allow's suppose you perform the experiment again, this fourth dimension taking the boosted step of wiring kids upward to brain-imaging equipment.

What parts of the brain are activated when puzzle-solvers are thirsty? Does brain imaging show any differences betwixt thirsty and non-thirsty kids?

Assume that it does: Brain imaging reveals differences in encephalon activity between thirsty and non-thirsty problem solvers.

What accept we learned from this?

Neuroimaging didn't tell us that thirsty kids are worse at solving puzzles. Information technology was the behavioral part of the experiment—giving kids real puzzles to solve—that showed that.

The encephalon imaging showed usa something else: What brains await similar when they are trying to solve puzzles under conditions of thirst.

That's interesting, but information technology isn't necessarily of applied importance. Then if y'all desire to know how to assistance kids learn–or ameliorate other aspects of their lives–you probably don't need neuroimaging.

And that's why nigh useful information available today nigh how kids learn–including data marketed equally "brain-based learning"– comes from studies of cognition and behavior, not brains.

Then why carp with neuroimaging in studies of this kind?

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Added value: What does neuroimaging tell united states about behavior that other tools cannot?

My case makes it sound like encephalon imaging is totally superfluous if you desire to predict how people really behave. And in many cases, that's true.

But every bit I noted at the beginning of this commodity, neuroimaging may indeed contribute insights of practical importance. Agreement brain activity may lead to new, testable hypotheses nearly learning.

Neuroimaging suggests that kids with dyscalculia might be especially benefited by training that helps them develop an intuitive sense of number. Investigators can now test this idea by conducting rigorous, controlled, behavioral studies.

And neuroimaging does something else, besides. It may give usa hints nearly mental processes that aren't easy to discover through behavioral measures solitary.

The baby report is one example of that. It's hard to establish what very young babies are thinking. Patterns of encephalon activity tin can't prove what's in their minds, but it'south a inkling.

Brain imaging tin also suggest how difficult our brains are working. Call up our thirsty kid experiment?

It turns out that several behavioral studies take been conducted along those lines. Almost, but not all, confirmed that depression levels of dehydration impair cerebral performance.

Then Matthew Kempton and his colleagues decided to run another "thirsty puzzle solver" experiment that measured encephalon activity, also.

The results? Kempton's team found no difference in puzzle-solving functioning between conditions. Kids were merely as expert at solving problems whether they were thirsty or not.

Simply the team did find an interesting difference in their brains. When the kids were thirsty, they showed a blueprint of encephalon activity associated with college levels of oxygen consumption. Their brains seemed to be using more than energy to accomplish the same task (Kempton et al 2010).

In other words, the thirsty brains had to work harder to achieve the same levels of functioning.

And that's a useful finding. Information technology tells usa that people may pay a price even if it isn't evident in their beliefs. The kids solved the puzzles, simply were less efficient doing so.

Would they take performed as well if they had additional issues to cope with–like the distractions we find in the average classroom? Mayhap non.

So neuroimaging can offering the states important clues about mental processes. We only need to exist careful nigh how we interpret these clues.

More information well-nigh the brain

Want to read more about recent discoveries in cerebral neuroscience? Encephalon research pops up in many Parenting Science articles. Here are a few you might desire to check out:

• opens in a new windowEmpathy and the brain
• Harmful beliefs that tin can hamper your kid'southward ability to learn
• opens in a new windowThe cognitive benefits of play: Effects on the learning brain
• opens in a new windowMusic and intelligence: A guide for the science-minded parent
• opens in a new windowMath earlier words: What babies know well-nigh numbers
• opens in a new windowTeen brains lack empathy? Not! How the media got it wrong

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References

Burnett Due south, Bird G, Moll J, Frith C, and Blakemore SJ. 2009.Development during boyhood of the neural processing of social emotion. J Cogn Neurosci. 21(9):1736-50.

Kempton MJ, Ettinger U, Foster R, Williams SC, Calvert GA, Hampshire A, Zelaya FO, O'Gorman RL, McMorris T, Owen AM, Smith MS. 2010. Dehydration affects brain structure and function in healthy adolescents. Hum Brain Mapp. 2010 Mar 24. [Epub alee of impress]

Kozel FA, Johnson KA, Grenesko EL, Laken SJ, Kose Due south, Lu X, Pollina D, Ryan A, George MS. 2009. Functional MRI Detection of Charade After Committing a Mock Sabotage Crime. J Forensic Sci. 54(1):220-31.

Kucian K, Loenneker T, Dietrich T, Dosch M, Martin Eastward, von Aster M. 2006. Impaired neural networks for guess calculation in dyscalculic children: a functional MRI study.Behav Brain Funct. two:31.

Schön D, Anton JL, Roth M, Besson M. 2002. An fMRI study of music sight-reading. Neuroreport. 3;13(17):2285-9.

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Source: https://parentingscience.com/neuroimaging/

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