THE EFFECTS OF EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITION: Plasticity and Development...
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Transcript of THE EFFECTS OF EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITION: Plasticity and Development...
THE EFFECTS OF EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITION:
Plasticity and Development
Newborn
Adult
Brodmann,1909
Key Issue:
How do associations between behaviors and the brain structures (that
control them) emerge?
Link between Behaviors their Neural Substrate
(i.e., language production Broca’s area)
Laterality
How do Cognitive skills become lateralized?(i.e., Language Left Hemisphere)
Early in life cognitive functions are bilateral (Infants and young children use different neural
networks for language compared to adults)
Change across development: PLASTICITY
Plasticity refers to the capacity for change
Term widely used within neurosciences, refers to changes at all levels of the cognitive-neural system from neurochemistry to behavior.
Plasticity is fundamental for brain development
1. Brain development is DYNAMIC
-Continuously changing
(i.e., new synaptic connections, new memory…)
2. Change requires INTERACTION
-Intrinsic factors (Nature: gene expression)
-Extrinsic factors (Nurture: environment, experience, learning)
Complexity of Nature X Nurture Interaction
Difficult to link changes in complex behaviors to the corresponding neural changes
- Animal models: i.e., sensory deprivation studies, neural pathway alteration studies
- Studies on Human Patient Populations: i.e., Congenital Deaf, Stroke Patients…
Children with Perinatal Focal Brain Injury
1. Single, unilateral focal lesion (mostly from strokes)
2. Normal or corrected to normal vision / audition.
3. IQ within normal range
From Moses, 1999
HOW DOES VERY EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY AFFECT
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION?
RIGHT HEMISPHERE LEFT HEMISPHERE
LEFT HEMISPHERE
PRIMARY LANGUAGE AREAS IN ADULTS ARE IN THE LEFT HEMISPHERE
BROCA’S AREA:PRODUCTION OF LANGUAGE
WERNIKE’S AREA:COMPREHENSION OF LANGUAGE
Vocabulary Production in Children with Early Injury
LEFT HEMISPHERE
LPT LESION
LEFT POSTERIOR TEMPORAL LESIONS
VOCABULARY PRODUCTION DEFICITS.
PRODUCTIONCOMPREHENSION
LEFT HEMISPHERE – ADULT
Vocabulary Comprehensionin Children with Early Injury
RIGHT HEMISPHERE LESIONS
+ COMPREHENSION DEFICITS
RIGHT HEMISPHERE
LEFT POSTERIOR TEMPORAL LESIONS
NO COMPREHENSION DEFICITS
LEFT HEMISPHERE
LPT LESION
PRODUCTION
LEFT HEMISPHERE – ADULT
COMPREHENSION
Typical Developmental changes in Language Processing: an ERPs study
Children at 13- and 20-months were tested on a “known” and “unknown” word comprehension task (ERPs recorded)
At 13 mo.: Brain activation patterns were bilateral and extended from frontal through posterior temporal and parietal regions.
By 20 mo.: Brain activation patterns were left lateralized over traditional language areas.
Neville et al., 1991
With learning and experience, Language networks become Left Lateralized and localized areas more efficient for language processing
Language Acquisition neural networksextend bilaterally from frontal to posterior areas
whereas
Narrative Production in School-age Children with Early Injury
By age 7, mastered basic semantic and grammatical features of language.
within the normal range on all measures of lexical (age 5) and morphosyntactic development
However,
they used complex syntax and narrative structures less frequently than typical children, even by 12yr
subtle deficits
Summary: Language in Children with Early Brain Lesions
1. All children were delayed in some aspect of language regardless of the lesion side.
2. Opposite profile from adult lesion populations
RIGHT HEMISPHERE INJURY IS ASSOCIATED WITH DEFICITS IN WORD COMPREHENSION.
LEFT POSTERIOR TEMPORAL INJURY IS ASSOCIATED WITH DEFICITS IN WORD AND GRAMMATICAL PRODUCTION.
3. Subtle deficits persistent over time
BY AGE 5, CHILDREN APPEAR TO “CATCH-UP.” THEY SCORE WITHIN THE NORMAL RANGE ON MEASURES OF SEMANTICS AND GRAMMATICAL MORPHOLOGY.
NO SITE SPECIFIC EFFECTS OBSERVED AFTER AGE 7 (AGE 5 FOR LEXICAL DEFICITS).
Summary: Language in Children with Early Brain Lesions
HOWEVER,
ALTHOUGH THEY SCORE WITHIN THE NORMAL RANGE, THEY TEND TO USE LESS COMPLICATED LANGUAGE FORMS
4. BILATERALLY DISTRIBUTED LANGUAGE NETWORKS in Typical Developing Infants can in part explain the nature of recovery/development in this population
Summary: Language in Children with Early Brain Lesions
Spatial Cognitive Development in Children with
Early Focal Brain Injury
SPATIAL ANALYSIS
The ability to specify both the parts and the overall configuration of a visually presented pattern, and to understand how the parts are related to form a whole.
Spatial analysis thus involves the ability:
to segment a pattern into a set of constituent parts
to integrate those parts into a coherent whole
Visual Pattern Processing
Segmentation of the parts
RIGHT HEMISPHERE
FrontBack
Integration of parts into a whole
LEFT HEMISPHERE
Front Back
MEMORY REPRODUCTION: ADULT LESION PATIENTS
PATTERNS OF SPATIAL DEFICIT IN ADULTS WITH RIGHT AND LEFT
POSTERIOR BRAIN INJURY
LEFT POSTERIOR BRAIN INJURY: Impairs ability to define and encode the parts of a spatial array. • Oversimplification of spatial patterns• Omission of pattern detail• rely on overall configural cues and ignore specific
elements of spatial patterns.
RIGHT POSTERIOR BRAIN INJURY: Impairs ability to integrate pattern elements into a coherent whole.• Focus on the parts or elements of the pattern• Able to produce or report the parts of a form but fail to
attend to the overall configuration.
FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING
(FMRI) OF TYPICAL ADULTS
Part-Whole Stimulus
S
SSSS
SS
S
SSSS
SS
S S S
Two tasks:1. Attend to the WHOLE.2. Attend to the PARTS.
Adult Brain Activation on the Part-Whole Processing Task
RIGHT LEFT
Attend to the Whole: Right > Left
Attend to the Part:Left > Right
Front
Back
VISUOSPATIAL PROCESSING IN CHILDREN WITH
EARLY BRAIN INJURY
MODEL HIERARCHICAL FORMS FOR THE MEMORY REPRODUCTION TASK
(6yrs, 5mo)(6yrs, 3mo)(6yrs, 10mo)MODEL
Longitudinal examples from normal controls
Examples from 5-year-olds
(5yrs, 8mo) (5yrs, 8mo)(5yrs, 7mo)(5yrs, 4mo)
(7yrs, 10mo) (9yrs, 3mo)(9yrs, 0mo)MODEL
3 Children with LEFT Hemisphere Stroke: LOCAL Processing Deficit
3 Children with RIGHT Hemisphere Stroke: GLOBAL Processing Deficit
Model (5yr, 1mo) (6yr, 0mo)(5yr, 1mo)
Model (6yr, 3mo)(6yr, 2mo) (6yr, 11mo)
REPRODUCTION ACCURACY(5-7year olds and 9-12 year olds)
Control group performs equally well on global and local
RH – deficit global; LH – deficit local
HOUSE DRAWINGS OF TYPICALLY DEVELOPING 3.5- TO 5-YEAR OLDS
HOUSE DRAWING OF CHILDREN WITH RIGHT OR LEFT FOCAL BRAIN INJURY
4 Children with LH Lesion: LOCAL Processing Deficit
4 Children with RH Lesion: GLOBAL Processing Deficit
LEFT hemisphere brain injury
RIGHT hemisphere brain injury
RIGHT LEFT
Attend to the Whole: Right > Left
Attend to the Part: Left > Right
SPATIAL ANALYSIS IN CHILDREN WITH EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY
1. DEFICITS ARE MILDER THAN THOSE OBSERVED AMONG ADULTS WITH COMPARABLE INJURY.
2. THE PATTERNS OF DEFICIT ASSOCIATED WITH LEFT OR RIGHT POSTERIOR INJURY ARE SIMILAR IN ADULTS AND CHILDREN.
SPATIAL ANALYSIS IN CHILDREN WITH EARLY FOCAL BRAIN INJURY
3. DEFICITS ARE PERSISTENT BUT MILD AND OFTEN NOT EVIDENT ON THE SAME MEASURES OVER TIME.
DEFICITS ARE MOST EVIDENT ON TASKS THAT ARE CHALLENGING FOR NORMALLY DEVELOPING PEERS. FOR MOST TASK, CHILDREN EVENTUALLY ACHIEVE CEILING LEVELS OF PERFORMANCE - AT LEAST FOR MEASURES OF PRODUCT.
4. SOME EVIDENCE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF COMPENSATORY STRATEGIES.
NEW TECHNIQUES FOR ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT PATTERNS OF NEURAL ORGANIZATION: FUNCTIONAL IMAGING.
Brain development is a dynamic, adaptive process.
The capacity for brain adaptation is evident from the earliest point in development.
Studies of children with focal brain injury illustrate the plasticity of the developing brain, that is the ability to organize differently, to adapt.
But these same studies also point to limits on plasticity.
Conclusions
… Question?
Nature v Nurture
NATURE
Most of the information necessary to build a human brain is latent within the genes.
Development consists of a process of a maturationally–defined unfolding or triggering of the information contained within the genes.
Deviation from that essential plan is an anomaly requiring exceptional developmental mechanisms.
...Nature vs. Nurture
NURTURE
Most of the information that shapes the human mind comes from the structure of the external world.
Some experiences are common experience while others are unique to the individual.
Development is a process of progressive differentiation of functionally equipotential cortical tissue.
An Alternative View
BOTH Nature and Nurture matter.
Neither is a sufficient account of the development of brain-behavior relations.
They influence one another -- i.e. they INTERACT.
An example of Nature X Nurture InteractionActivity Dependent Competition and Cell Death
Cells compete for NGF, the ones that activate first and most for make connections and get NGF, the others die.
Intrinsic cue Nerve Growth Factor (NGF)
Extrinsic cue Sensory stimulation (i.e., ) Neuronal Activity