Childhood stimulation key to brain development, says study
20-year study shows educational interaction with parents around the age of four aids a child's development of 'grey matter' in teens
An early childhood surrounded by books and educational toys will leave positive fingerprints on a person's brain well into their late teens, a 20-year research study has shown.
It is known that childhood experience influences brain development but the only evidence scientists have had for this has usually come from extreme cases such as children who had been abused or suffered trauma.
Martha Farah, director of the centre for neuroscience and society at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the latest study, wanted to find out how a normal range of experiences in childhood might influence brain development.
Farah took data from surveys of home life and brain scans of 64 participants over 20 years. Her results were presented on Saturday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans.
They showed that cognitive stimulation from parents at the age of four was the key factor in predicting the development of several parts of the cortex - the layer of grey matter on the outside of the brain - 15 years later.
The participants had been tracked since they were four years old.