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Brain Scans Show the Impact of Neglect On a Child's Brain Size
An anonymous reader writes "A shocking comparison of brain scans from two three-year-old children reveals new evidence of the remarkable impact a mother's love has on a child's brain development. The chilling images reveal that the left brain, which belongs to a normal 3-year-old, is significantly larger and contains fewer spots and dark 'fuzzy' areas than the right brain, which belongs to that of a 3-year-old who has suffered extreme neglect. Neurologists say that the latest images provide more evidence that the way children are treated in their early years is important not only for the child's emotional development, but also in determining the size of their brains. Experts say that the sizeable difference in the two brains is primarily caused by the difference in the way each child was treated by their mothers."
Were both children same sex, race....other variables with genetic implications?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
While I agree in theory with the findings in theory (though I haven't read TFA due to them putting two of the same obnoxious ad with sound on the same page so it plays with an echo) I think a sample size of two children is a bit small to declare any sort of scientific result.
>"of the remarkable impact a mother's love has on a child's brain development."
Oh, so only a MOTHER'S love could cause that, not a father's or anyone else...
This would only be valid if it was a comparison of identical twins raised in the different environments.
On the other hand, the child with the smaller brain on the right will be more likely to become addicted to drugs, be involved in violent crimes, be unemployed and dependent on government benefits in the future.
Also, really? Phrenology much? This dumps credibility down the toilet pretty quick.
Mr. Burns: Of course you'd say that. You have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter.
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No one should doubt the necessity and benefits of love to a child, or the harmful effects of neglect. That said, is it just me, or was much of that story eerily reminiscent of phrenology?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
The size of the brain isn't the determining factor in intelligence; Its surface area is. It's well-known that stress can cause structural differences in the brain, as does a wide variety of environmental conditions. But when you consider that a child can lose half of their brain and still go on to have a full range of mental faculties, and appear completely normal to any outside observer, it's clear size doesn't really matter... it's the number of interconnections between cells that seems to be what is important... and specifically, how and where those interconnections are made.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
get back to me when you have scans of say 2K kids or say 2M kids
then index by Race/Gender/Location and whatever other factors you can think of.
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Stupid parents have stupid children. I assume some is nutrition versus nurturing, but in the end it doesn't matter. And Mothers: Please don't use the TV as a babysitter.
Humans are social animals - we develop to our fullest potential when we are safe, secure, and can develop socially. When we are ignored, or left alone - the need to develop complex intelligence and social constructs fades, we revert to a more animal state. Children, especially babies, are closer to animals (in brain development and in-born skills, not in terms of our compassion for them) in this aspect than adults - as they have not yet formed the relationships with other beings as well as the means to express themselves fully. Only after they are cared for, taught and kept in part of a social circle are they able to develop more humanly.
I was under the impression that this was already an extremely well known impact of neglect (or conversely, attention). That said, comparing only two brains is completely meaningless. The margin of error is off the charts. And how were the children selected? Probably exactly because of the contrast between them.
Feminism and rich people? What?
I guess your career was more important...b*tch! // just kidding, my mom was great.
whatsoever, presumably the skull sizes would have to be the same? (Unless skull size follows brain size? In which case, how does intelligence track with head size, itself? I wouldn't immediately expect it to.)
Were that so, one would think so much gap would likely result in injury or some other (physical) complications.
When you fail to clearly define what Extreme Neglect is you're giving crazy Helicopter Parents the excuse to be as crazy as they are. What is Extreme Neglect for 3 and under? Is leaving the child screaming for an hour in the bassinet extreme neglect, or is that just sleep training? I'd personally call hitting a child Abuse but is these also considered extreme neglect? Or is Extreme Neglect for those parents who never hold or cuddle their child, but rather just shove a bottle in the kids mouth and make sure their needs are only minimally met? Is leaving a child with their Grand Parent for the Day so you can have a night out Extreme Neglect, or is that Normal? I don't like these kinds of child studies because they overly generalize what they are looking at because they don't want to say something like we scanned the brains of children who were under the care of convicted child abusers who left their children at home unattended.
So basically this qualifies as a glorified anecdote. We're taking the researcher's word for age and conditions of these two brain scans. The article chooses to talk solely about mother's love, and not any confounding factors. Where are the correlation statistics for mother, father, age, genetics, economics, poverty, education, community, nutrition, illness, accidents, grandparents, number of siblings, geographic location, social services, etc., etc.?
Offhand I would bet that simple nutrition is more highly correlated with brain size than mother's emotional attention -- and the former is something we can change with social programs. For this kind of stuff I want to see scientific studies, not People magazine exposes.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Between a single instance being treated as definite proof, the unanswered question of whether the abuse might have included brain injuries, and the whorish, loud ads everywhere on the site... i'll take that with a bucket or two of salt, thank you.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Early, often and continuous maternal contact, speaking and other interactions are shown to help development measurable in a variety of ways from ages as short as the first 6 months. This is no longer a surprise.
Is anybody else reminded of Harlow's rather disconcerting work on maternal attachment in monkeys and his later, even more disconcerting, work on the effects of isolation on monkeys(if your laboratory apparatus includes a device referred to as the 'pit of despair' you might have an ethics problem...)?
As long as at least one is nurturing and attentive in the formative years, wich one is doing it or their gender does not really matter.
The article does not relate the scans to professor Shore, a 2-subject experiment is not statistically significant in this case and it relies on evidence flimsily linked to other findings. This looks like tabloid fodder.
Perhaps there's a reason why this isn't in a peer reviewed journal. First off, you have a sample size in each group of exactly one. I'm not a statistician, but I'm pretty sure that in itself makes the whole thing utterly meaningless.
But let's pretend you get the same results with a statistically significant sample size...here it comes....correlation != causation (you were thinking that already). Perhaps the cause is nutrition, so you'd have to factor in nutrition, either by using neglected children who somehow had good nutrition, or non-neglected children who had poor nutrition (although I doubt those overbearing vegan hippies would be willing to let their children get blasted with evil voodoo radiation for the imaging studies). What if it's because the parents' brains are smaller? Perhaps it's purely genetic, the parents are stupid because of smaller brains and fuzzy spots and passed that trait onto their children, and they also neglect their child because they're stupid. The article also states that the child was neglected and *abused*, so how do we know the difference isn't the result of physical trauma?
The bad parenting is result of some brain difference too. And that difference is passed on genetically. Hence, on what basis do they attribute the difference to the neglect rather than to genetic causes?
You are wrong, sir - Only a lactating woman can breast-feed. By "bonding," they not only mean the emotional bond from the titty-suckin', but the chemical benefits that only real breast milk (and not formula) can provide.
I surmise that the Slashdot males are social retards because of the lack of cerebral development caused by being too timid to latch on to the breast (an inborn fear of bonding with women that apparently follows them for life) and so chose the vastly-inferior formula-feed, or their Christian mommies deprived them of the breast for being the uptight shrews they are.
Either way, tit milk...that's the key to this whole article. Read between the shallow lines in your brains.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Your "study's" sample size is two. But gratuitous use of words like "shocking" and "chilling" will probably make most people ignore that.
Liberty in your lifetime
I for one think that all grade-school aged children should be given mandatory brain scans two or three times a year with bad results requiring the child to immediately be put into the nurturing safety of a Foster Care Facility and their Parents locked up for good.
Sometimes technology brings such wonderful possibilities for the safety of the Children!
N = 2. Great. Let's write it up and send it in.
FRAUD ALERT! Possibly "Medical Daily" is paying for these stories. My experience is that Medical Daily is not reputable.
Slashdot managers or editors apparently sometimes take money to post stories.
Sorry, is this Slashdot, or Yahoo! Answers? I think I'm lost.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I'd be far more apt to believe that any sort of stunted development in a child was due to malnutrition, especially in one that was admittedly suffering from 'extreme neglect'. This 'study', as it stands, should be binned.
It comes as little surprise. I think as we begin to get a more full grasp on how we develop as children into adults, we can make more progress to improve our species and our societies. It probably won't stop black men from leaving their families, or white trash from beating their wives right away, but perhaps in a generation or two, some real progress of understanding can be had.
But also in terms of how we deal with criminal behavior? We always want to say "bad person! punish them!" or "creepy person! put them away!" These are instictive reactions and not wholly suitable I think. Are many of these formerly neglected and abused children entirely responsible for their lives once they are grown? And their mental capacity and capability? Is that their fault? I know it gets into some pretty society-burdening areas when we start removing the fault and guilt from criminal behavior but I feel a bit bad for these children even after they have grown.
Ah... on second thought... forget everything I just said. Let's just keep on the way we are and throw people away. It's easier.
generally intrigued and discouraged by the amount of negative and cynical response in the comments above. seems to be general resentment to the idea of nurturing and loving our babies. seems people would rather hear that it's ok to stick an bottle in your infant and leave them to cry it out in the crib.
You are wrong, sir - Only a lactating woman can breast-feed.
Not true. Men can also breast feed. Rare, but it does happen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation
That all probably seems reasonable to you (and some others), doesn't mean it matches reality. You really think that the 98% black vote for democrats is the result of careful reflection? Also, if you look at the demographics of Rush Limbaugh's audience, you will see that as a whole they are solidly in groups who are the most knowledgeable about who and what they vote for.
There isn't a show on TV or radio that wouldn't kill for the quality of the audience he has.
I simply cannot find any single person who votes democrat that is capable of explaining what they want and why. I consistently find that as a group their knowledge of their own beliefs is paper-thin and if you challenge them to back up any of their opinions, they cannot. That's when they start switching subjects, parsing what you say to them (looking for something to argue about that leads away from the actual point), and slinging mud.
Not going to blow my mod points for a moron like you, so I'm posting AC. I do want to note that your post engages in the same sweeping generalizations, paper-thin knowledge and tired rhetoric that you decry in those you consider to be your opponents.
Oh, and by the way, I vote the way I do because while I can't stop the greedy scumbags from the RepubliCrat party (yes, the wholly owned political subsidiary of corporate America), I can at least try to mitigate the damage by not supporting the folks who will bring us back to feudal times in ten years and vote for the ones who are okay with it taking 25 years or so.
Consider this If you're an ordinary American -- the Democratic side of the RepubliCrat coin is like standing under a leaky sewer pipe getting raw sewage dripped on you. The Republican side of the coin is like standing under the same pipe while someone takes a sledgehammer to it and breaks it wide open so you can get the full flow of the raw sewage on your head.
Both are disgusting, both are humiliating, but one give you the chance to maybe find a plumber to fix the pipe before it bursts on its own.
Oh, and I'd be happy to debate the important issues of the day with you anytime, mate. And you will find yourself on the short end.
Just for good measure, I'll point out that I love this country very much. It's my home and we've done well by each other. But I actually give a rats ass about my fellow Americans. Clearly, you're a "fuck you jack, I've got mine" kind of person. Your ilk are the reasons things are so screwed.
How freaky is it come from home from an appointment with the neurologist and see this at the top of the Slashdot?
So, some anecdotal evidence supporting this. My wife and I are foster parents. You have no idea how bad some kids have it until you see it first hand. We have a foster child with us that has been professionally diagnosed as being 'developmentally delayed'. This means not being able to do the things that a baby of his age should be able to do. Crawl, eat soft food, roll over, mimic a caregiver, make vowel sounds, sit without falling over. A month ago when this child arrived, he could do none of them. As of today, he can do all but crawl and roll over, but he's almost doing that now too.
The neurologist today examined him and feels strongly that all of his developmental delays are due to extreme neglect. Not feeding your child properly, not playing with him, not 'conversing' with him, leaving him in a car seat all day. These are all basic examples of neglect that add up to extreme neglect.
For those that commented "Isn't this well known already?", yes, it is. The therapist see the developmental delays. They get the child checked by a geneticist and neurologist, ruling out brain issues and things like down syndrome. This process of elimination points directly at extreme neglect.
Again, anecdotal evidence, but evidence just the same.
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
There are thing about the skull that do frequently impact behavior as well. That doesn't make phrenology valid science.
It's difficult to prove a negative, so what evidence do you have that it does matter?
Roughly 100,000 years of human history in which it was done one way and worked, compared with 50 years of sexual liberation where youth descended into ramapnt suicide, depression, crime and delinquency. True, correleation isn't causation, but it's a pretty good indication in this case as we're talking about developmental environment and developmental trajectory of individuals.
Your move.
But hey, thanks for the science.
On the other hand, a recent paper suggests that books trim the cortex.
neuroscientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania and her colleagues recruited 64 children from a low income background and followed them from birth through to late adolescence....More than 10 years after the second home visit, the researchers used MRI to obtain detailed images of the participants' brains. They found that the level of mental stimulation a child receives in the home at age 4 predicted the thickness of two regions of the cortex in late adolescence, such that more stimulation was associated with a thinner cortex.
Neuroplasticity only goes so far, and in a case where the entire brain is deficient in development, it's unlikely to take place at all.
It primarily applies when an otherwise healthy brain suffers damage.
Well, during the "50 years of sexual liberation where youth descended into rampant suicide, depression, crime and delinquency" wouldn't you say the vast majority of children (like greater than 99%) were still brought up by different sex couples?
It's difficult to prove a negative, so what evidence do you have that it does matter?
You mean, aside from a huge number of obvious morphological, mental, and behavioral differences? Well, if we exclude those I guess I don't have much.
Where?
Wrong on the greater than 99% part. In the USA, about a quarter of children are brought up by single parents, meaning that at least in the USA, less than 75% of children are brought up by different sex couples.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
More than anything, the difference is likely due to nutrition, canabinoids and opiates in the breast milk, tobacco smoke in the air and a few other minor things like attention and love...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
There is a theory now stating that childhood as we know it is a result of evolutionary forces compared with Homo Erectus infants grow very rapidly with a comparatively shortened childhood ~ approx 30% less. The longer the childhood stage, the more 'learning' occurs until the brain is fixed by the Homo Sapien age of 20 or around 12-15yrs of the ancestors.
Somehow I think that emotional neglect that may retard brain activity, learning and systematic growth is the polar opposite of the evolutionary trend that may change the direction of evolution.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Are you seriously asking me to make a list of ways that men and women are different?
Probably true, I should have stated the inverse -- I suspect the percentage of same sex couples raising children would comprise less than 1% of families over the last 50 years.
In any case, the parent AC was responding to a previous AC who asked for evidence that it (being brought up by same-sex couples) mattered. The '50 years of sexual liberation' argument looks meaningless in that light because likely only a very small fraction of same sex couples raised kids during those 50 years.
Assuming that both images are to scale and taken from the same "slice" of brain (i.e. the images haven't been cooked for dramatic effect), there is a massive difference in the size of the head between both images. If this is the case then couldn't the shrinkage be due to poor nutrition? The whole article is pretty week and quotes no evidence or studies other than the single image.
Seriously. If we're a society that values equality, why do $authors continue to write this way?????
You are wrong in stating that only a lactating woman can breastfeed. First of all, Male breasts are just undeveloped female breasts... a few hormones, and they can develop and start lactating. It does occur naturally, and I am sure it can be stimulated with hormone injections. Next, my wife had lactation issues with our first child. Our daughter would feed for maybe 15 minutes, and then due to slow supply, she would give up. Mamma would then switch to a breast pump, and I would take the previous 'harvest' and with a finger tube, our daughter would feed from my fingers. I had not been pregnant, so my breasts did not have the hormones to instigate lactation. So, our daughter got the benefit of breast milk, she bonded with Mamma on her breast, and she bonded with me, Mom, on a finger.
Ah, you mean 100,000 years where it "worked", in the sense that the human race failed to die out? I agree. Of course during most of the last 6000 years (where we actually have a historical record) the mean life expectancy was less than 20, women were de facto chattel and slaves, crime was no less commonplace than it is today (for all that it was punished far more severely), humanity was trapped in a state of unbelievable ignorance concerning the natural state of affairs that led them to adopt the most extravagant and absurd mythologies and use them to transform the status quo into "the will of the gods", and life was sufficiently close to the state of nature that it was ugly, nasty, brutish and very, very short even in what laughingly passed for "civilization". No noble savages these, but men and women for whom violence and misery were the normal state of affairs.
The poorest and meanest individuals living in modern society live better than the rulers of vast empires lived a mere century or two ago.
And then there is war. And the fact that what you call "sexual liberation" has never been anything but the rule for the lusty old human species, however much some of those antique and false mythologies sought to demonize it and regulate it. That, in fact, is why sex "worked" to perpetuate the species. Evolution requires warm bodies, produced in abundance, and lets abilities and luck sort it all out afterwards.
Personally, I think that while TFA is undoubtedly correct that it is really gangbusters good to love your children and provide them with a stimulating environment and the occasional kick in the pants to overcome the natural sloth to which our species (with its energy conserving reptile-brain core) is prone, "sexual liberation" has far less to do with any sort of social ennui or malaise visible among youth than the fact that our society forces them to delay acceptance into society as adults until they are in their 20s, when their evolved biology presumes that they would be 50% likely to be dead by their 20s and that "adulthood" begins at age 13 or thereabouts.
There is a deadly window in the teenage years where every hormone flooding a young brain is whispering to them to have sex, start a family, challenge the tribal leaders for status, run away to found your own tribe. It stimulates risk taking (which fuels evolution, successful risk takers being good genetic stock). It is the occult cause of gangs (tribes where youth can gain status), teen-age pregnancy, overt and covert rebellion against parents, society, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, tattoos and piercings. Failure to attain social status during these years is deadly indeed -- it is often the kids that are "outsiders", who don't fit in, who become depressed, although mere brain dysfunction due to imbalances of various neurotransmitters or damage from the toxins rampant in modern civilization no doubt contribute more than their fair share. One of the largest causes of death at this age is the humble automobile -- we let children in the throes of this transition drive massive machines at high speeds largely because it is more convenient to the adults to permit them to do so, and pay the price in human misery when they not terribly surprisingly run their cars into trees, into other cars, into ditches and rivers as they drive them too fast, without enough fear of consequence or attention, with other equally distracted youth in the car with them egging them on in pushing the envelope.
For all that -- your "rampant suicide, depression, crime and delinquency" -- youth outlive their predecessors from more than 50 years ago by an increasing margin, and one that is clearly correlated with both reproductive age/female fertility (negatively) and education (positively) across many countries and social strata. Not to introduce anything like data into a good social rant, but you might look at things like: www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/sosis/.../BulledSosis2010.pdf to see how the actual numbers work out.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I can totally see this. We got one little one at 11 months, who was taken from home at 9 months, and we were her 4th foster home in that 2 month period.
She came to us an angry sad 11 month old that was taken care of primarily by a 10 year old brother, just very unhappy little one... after a year with us she turned into a smart bubbly laughing girl because we gave her constant attention along with our child, who is a year older than her.
She craved attention more than anything. once she started walking, she would do naughty things intentionally just to get a timeout, so she could have a hug at the end. Took a long time to get her to understand that she just has to ask for a hug and she can have all she wants...
Parental attention is an absolute must. it can make a world of difference.
TFA is accompanied by a terrible image of two head scans. They are obviously not sized the same. One skull is about 50 percent larger than the other. I'm not a radiologist, but the scans appear to be different resolutions too. It's like they wanted to show people "different brains sizes" so they deliberately chose images heads with different sizes so we'd get the point. Lies, damn lies (the pictures I mean).
You are wrong, sir - Only a lactating woman can breast-feed. By "bonding," they not only mean the emotional bond from the titty-suckin', but the chemical benefits that only real breast milk (and not formula) can provide.
'fraid no, son. My oldest daughter got breast milk, as often from a bottle as a tit because she'd pump it out and I took care of the daughter when she was at work. The youngest had colic and couldn't properly digest breast milk and had to have formula. The youngest bonded more than the oldest, and both kids bonded far more with me than with their mother. Yes, sample of one, I know.
I surmise that the Slashdot males are social retards because of the lack of cerebral development caused by being too timid to latch on to the breast
I was breast-fed and was socially inept well into adulthood.
Breast milk doesn't matter to bonding, but it does matter to the baby's physical health.
Free Martian Whores!
Roughly 100,000 years of human history in which it was done one way and worked, compared with 50 years of sexual liberation where youth descended into ramapnt suicide, depression, crime and delinquency.
Hmmm... self-destructive deaths among teens rose from the 1950s to the 1970s, then generally declined.Teen-age suicides peaked in 1977 with 13.3 deaths per 100,000.
Your "facts" are wrong. Rather than descending into depression and suicide, depression and suicide peaked almost 40 years ago, before the "gay liberation". What about crime and delinquency?
Juvenile arrest rates were flat until 1987, peaked in 1995, and have been dropping since.
You may not realize it, but before 1900 maternal death rates were horrendous. Many, many children were motherless because their mothers died birthing their sibling. Then there were horriffic wars that caused fatherless children... and diseases that made children motherless, fatherless, and often orphaned.
Your logic is as wrong as your facts. Your ignorance of juvinile depression and crime rates is as bad as your ignorance of history.
Free Martian Whores!
Thank you sir! I did at LEAST as much care of our children as my ex-wife while they were little. After the age of about 18 months, I was doing about 80% of the care. My kids are well-adjusted, straight-A students. I'm tired of the female-centric, men-are-only-dufus-ATM's mentality of today's society.
This is not science. Bad editor. Bad.
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
In any case, the parent AC was responding to a previous AC who asked for evidence that it (being brought up by same-sex couples) mattered. The '50 years of sexual liberation' argument looks meaningless in that light because likely only a very small fraction of same sex couples raised kids during those 50 years.
The '50 years of of sexual liberation' argument looks meaningless when puritans in the US get all worked up and make a big deal about an accidental breast being shown on the TV. Things might be a little less strict than they used to be but in general, there is still a large repressive trend towards sex in American culture. I suspect from personal antidotes that many of those single parents and some of those different sex couples would be same sex marriages if they could. One friend's single parent turned out to be gay but he didn't even realize till well after college when he finally put two and two together about his mother and her live in "best friend".
My grand parents used to raise everything they needed to eat. Chicken, cow, turkey, sheep, wheat, grape, fruits, you name it. They had everything, natural, not chemicals, no GMO, no other funny additives. They did not have as money as i have. BUT, they did eat better food than me, and lived healthier life than me, and were having less health problems than me.... :)
So, yes, i agree, the poor grand parents....they did not even have iPHONE???WOW. They should have killed themselves
Well, let's begin with the fact that only the mother can give birth to the child. That seems to be at least a minor difference in child-rearing capabilities. I wonder if other significant differences might exist...