"Facial-Processing Area of Brain Keeps Growing Throughout Childhood"

Allison Barker

Current Event Review

AP Bio

1/9/17

Hamers, Laurel. "Facial-processing Area of Brain Keeps Growing throughout Childhood." Science News. N.p., 05 Jan. 2017. Web. 09 Jan. 2017. <https://www.sciencenews.org/article/facial-processing-area-brain-keeps-growing-throughout-childhood?tgt=nr>.

I read the article “Facial-Processing Area of Brain Keeps Growing Throughout Childhood” by Laurel Hamers. This article discussed new findings by a team of researchers that indicate that the part of the brain whose function is to recognize faces continues growing new tissue throughout childhood, which is contrary to what scientists previously believed. Brain development during childhood is widely believed to involve pruning back neural connections rather than growing new neural tissue, so this finding is revolutionary. Scientists such as Brad Duchaine, who was not a part of the study, are excited about the prospect of new growth techniques being discovered. Duchaine expressed his joy that “pruning isn’t the only game in town.” In order to gather this information, researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to find the areas of the brain’s visual cortex that work to identify faces and compared those to the areas of the visual cortex that identify images of places. The scientists compared the structures of these two brain areas in the brains of 22 children (aged 5 to 12) and 25 young adults (aged 22 to 28). The collateral sulcus, which identifies places, did not change much between childhood and adulthood, but the fusiform gyrus, which identifies faces, changed dramatically in this time period. The tissue in the fusiform gyrus of adults contains a different composition of cells and proteins and is much denser than that of children. Although scientists cannot determine from the MRI scans the types of cells and structures that result in the increased tissue observed in the fusiform gyrus of adults, but findings from previous studies suggest that the cause could be an increase in dendrites, which are the projections of nerve cells that communicate with other nerve cells. Dendrites might branch out more while the child is growing and make more connections. Another cause could be the oligodendrocytes, which are brain cells that produce the insulating myelin coating that surrounds nerve cells. One thing is for sure, though, according to neuroscientist Jesse Gomez, who led the study: The number of nerve cells is not increasing. This study cannot determine whether brain tissue increases only in the facial recognition area or in other visual areas of the brain, as well, because this study only compared the areas of the brain that recognize faces and places. However, this study does prove that the development of different types of visual processing occurs in different ways. One reason for the development of facial recognition tissue later in life may be the time it takes for humans to develop facial recognition skills. Gomez states, “Throughout development, our social circle grows. That might be one reason why the region continues to grow - that piece of hardware in the brain itself just takes time to develop.” The researchers will continue following their subjects in order to determine the cutoff age for tissue growth, and they hope to investigate the other specialized regions of the visual cortex in later studies in order to see whether similar tissue growth occurs in these areas.

The findings of the study discussed in this article have large implications for humanity. It is a goal of scientists to try to determine how the brain forms because knowing the makeup of the brain, and how it changes over time, could be key in curing many disorders. These findings could especially help in research regarding developmental disorders, as they discovered how a key region in the brain develops. Further, the method of growth for the tissue in the facial-processing region of the visual cortex could also occur in other regions of the visual cortex, so this discovery could advance understanding in research of many parts of the brain. It is imperative to continue learning how the brain works, and it is exciting that scientists have been able to determine a new growth process in the brain.

I found this article very interesting and easy to understand. I do not know much about neurobiology, so I was intimidated when I first saw the article, as I was not sure that I would understand anything. However, the language that the author used was very accessible, and she described the methods, results, and implications of the study very well. The only thing that I would change about this article is the discussion of “pruning.” Pruning is another method of brain tissue growth, and it is the method that scientists had assumed all brain tissue used to develop. Although this is mentioned a couple of times, pruning is never explained. I feel that a discussion of pruning would aid in the understanding of the reader and would allow for greater contrast in the new method of growth that has been discovered. Overall, though, I loved that this piece taught me a great deal about a subject that I was not familiar with.