Brain development

• Prenatal brain development

  
• Postnatal brain development

  
• Development of vital brain structures and systems

  • Structures supporting vital functions (e.g., heartbeat, breathing) develop first
  • Structures supporting basic motion, sensing stimuli etc., precede development of structures involved in complex coordination
  • Structures involved in complex reasoning and executive functioning develop last
• Brain structures

  
• Brain communication


  Neurons allow for communication in the brain

  Communication happens at synapses

  
• Neuronal development

  Proliferation

  • Prenatally, new neurons are created (neurogenesis)
  • Some produced after birth

  Migration

  • New nerve cells are born in the center of the brain and move outward
  • Mostly happens prenatally

  Synaptogenesis

  • Forming of synapses
  • Starts prenatally, continues postnatally
• Increasing speed and efficiency of neural communication

  Neural pathways get trimmed over development to only the essential and most used ones

  Neuronal death/cell death

  Synaptic pruning

  • less-used paths overgrow = synaptic connections disappear
  • heavily used paths become wider and easier to walk on = synaptic connection strengthens
• Myelination


  Enclosing the axon in fatty ‘insulating’ material

  
• Neuron development


  Grey matter

  • Contains neuronal cell bodies

  White matter

  • Composed of axons that form connections between clusters of grey matter, each surrounded by myelin

  
• Puberty and brain development