Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:40:39.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Essay: Cycles and gradients in development of the cortex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Robert W. Thatcher
Edited by
Kurt W. Fischer ,
Jane Holmes Bernstein  and
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Robert W. Thatcher
Affiliation:
Director of the NeuroImaging Laboratory Bay Pines VA; Adjunct Professor of Neurology University of South Florida College of Medicine
Kurt W. Fischer
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Jane Holmes Bernstein
Affiliation:
The Children's Hospital, Boston
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Get access

Summary

Connection: The brain and cognition both develop in systematic patterns of cycles and gradients, which are evident from the very beginnings in prenatal development and continue for later developments of brain activity and behavior in childhood and adolescence. One of the most powerful tools for examining brain activity and relating it to cognitive development is the electroencephalogram (EEG), a measure of the electrical waves generated by the cortex of the brain. A valuable property of the EEG is coherence, the similarity between waves in different brain regions, which is measured by correlating wave forms through Fourier analysis. Coherence shows clear developmental cycles and gradients, which seem to relate to general patterns of cognitive development as well as individual differences.

The Editors

Gradients and cycles in prenatal development

From the moment of conception embryological development is organized in terms of spatial gradients and growth cycles. Brain development reflects these processes from its earliest origins.

Spatial gradients of prenatal development

Spatial gradients shape development from the beginning prenatally (Diamond, Scheibel, & Elson, 1985; Rakic, 1988). Shortly after conception, a ball of cells grows symmetrically without a clear left or right or an anterior or posterior plane. At the first differentiation, spatial polarization occurs in which a disk with an anterior and posterior end and a medial and lateral plane appears. The inner layer (i.e. the endoderm) differentiates to form the skeleton and gut, while the outer layer of the disk (i.e. the ectoderm) differentiates to form the neural plate from which the entire nervous system develops.

Type
Chapter
Information
Mind, Brain, and Education in Reading Disorders , pp. 124 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayer, S. A. & Altman, J. (1991). Neocortical development. New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Bell, M. A. (1998). The ontogency of the EEG during infancy and childhood: Implications for cognitive development. In Garreau, B. (ed.), Neuroimaging in child psychiatric disorders, 97–111. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, M. A. & Fox, N. A. (1996). Crawling experience is related to changes in cortical organization during infancy: Evidence from EEG coherence. Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 551–61.3.0.CO;2-T>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bishop, K. M., Goudreau, G. & Leary, O' D. M. (2000). Regulation of areal identity in the mammalian neocortex by Emx2 and Pax6. Science, 288, 344–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, T. G. & Fox, C. M. (2001). Applying the Rasch model: Fundamental measurement in the human sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bullock, D. & Grossberg, S. (1988). Neural dynamics of planned arm movements: Emergent invariants and speed-accuracy properties during trajectory formation. Psychological Review, 95, 49–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Case, R. (ed.) (1991). The mind's staircase: Exploring the conceptual underpinnings of children's thought and knowledge. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Case, R. & Okamoto, Y. (1996). The role of central conceptual structures in the development of children's thought. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60 (nos. 5–6, Serial No. 246).Google Scholar
Coch, D., Maron, L., Wolf, M. & Holcomb, P. J. (2002). Word- and picture-processing in the human brain: An event-related potential study. Developmental Neuropsychology, 22, 373–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, L. M. & Cliff, N. (1990). Using the longitudinal Guttman simplex as a basis for measuring growth. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 128–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, G. & Fischer, K. W. (eds) (1994). Human behavior and the developing brain. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Dawson, T. L. (2002). New tools, new insights: Kohlberg's moral reasoning stages revisited. International Journal of Behavior Development, 26, 154–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, T. L. & Gabrielian, S. (2003). Developing conceptions of authority and contract across the lifespan: Two perspectives. Developmental Review, 23, 162–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, T. & Wilson, M. (2004). The LAAS: A computerizable scoring system for small- and large-scale developmental assessments. Educational Assessment, 9, 153–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, M. & Hopson, J. (1998). Magic trees of the mind: How to nurture your child's intelligence, creativity, and healthy emotions from birth through adolescence. New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Diamond, M. C., Scheibel, A. B. & Elson, L. M. (1985). The human brain coloring book. New York: Barnes and Noble.Google Scholar
Epstein, J. M. (1997). Nonlinear dynamics, mathematical biology, and social science. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Press.Google Scholar
Estes, W. K. (1956). The problem of inference from curves based on group data. Psychological Review, 53, 134–40.Google ScholarPubMed
Fabbro, F., Brusaferro, A. & Bava, A. (1990). Opposite musical-manual interference in young versus expert musicians. Neuropsychologica, 28, 871–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fink, R. (1995). Successful dyslexics: A constructivist study of passionate interest reading. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 39, 268–80.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. (1980). A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills. Psychological Review, 87, 477–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Ayoub, C. C., Noam, G. G., Singh, I., Maraganore, A. & Raya, P. (1997). Psychopathology as adaptive development along distinctive pathways. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 751–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer, K. W. & Bidell, T. R. (1998). Dynamic development of psychological structures in action and thought. In Lerner, R. M. (ed.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development, 5th edn, 467–561. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Granott, N. (1995). Beyond one-dimensional change: Parallel, concurrent, socially distributed processes in learning and development. Human Development, 38, 302–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Kennedy, B. (1997). Tools for analyzing the many shapes of development: The case of self-in-relationships in Korea. In Amsel, E. & Renninger, K. A. (eds), Change and development: Issues of theory, method, and application, 117–52. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Kenny, S. L. (1986). The environmental conditions for discontinuities in the development of abstractions. In Mines, R. & Kitchener, K. (eds), Adult cognitive development: Methods and models, 57–75. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Knight, C. C. & Van Parys, M. (1993). Analyzing diversity in developmental pathways: Methods and concepts. In Case, R. & Edelstein, W. (eds), The new structuralism in cognitive development: Theory and research on individual pathways, 33–56. Basel, Switzerland: Karger.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Pipp, S. L. & Bullock, D. (1984). Detecting discontinuities in development: Method and measurement. In Emde, R. & Harmon, R. (eds), Continuities and discontinuities in development, 95–121. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Rose, L. T. (2001). Webs of skill: How students learn. Educational Leadership, 59(3), 6–12.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Rose, S. P. (1994). Dynamic development of coordination of components in brain and behavior: A framework for theory and research. In Dawson, G. & Fischer, K. W. (eds), Human behavior and the developing brain, 3–66. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Rose, S. P. (1996). Dynamic growth cycles of brain and cognitive development. In Thatcher, R., Lyon, G. R., Rumsey, J. & Krasnegor, N. (eds), Developmental neuroimaging: Mapping the development of brain and behavior, 263–79. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W. & Rose, S. P. (1999). Rulers, clocks, and nonlinear dynamics: Measurement and method in developmental research. In Savelsbergh, G., Maas, H. & Geert, P. (eds), Nonlinear developmental processes, 197–212. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Rotenberg, E. J., Bullock, D. H. & Raya, P. (1993). The dynamics of competence: How context contributes directly to skill. In Wozniak, R. H. & Fischer, K. W. (eds), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments. The Jean Piaget symposium series, 93–117. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fischer, K. W., Yan, Z. & Stewart, J. (2003). Adult cognitive development: Dynamics in the developmental web. In Valsiner, J. & Connolly, K. (eds), Handbook of developmental psychology, 491–516. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Flavell, J. H. (1972). An analysis of cognitive-developmental sequences. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 86, 279–350.Google Scholar
Fogel, A. (1993). Developing through relationships: Origins of communication, self, and culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, E. & Costa, L. D. (1981). Hemisphere differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brain and Language, 14, 144–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gordon, H. W. & Carmon, A. (1976). Transfer of dominance in speed of verbal response to visually presented stimuli from right to left hemisphere. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 42, 1091–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U. (2002). Phonology, reading development and dyslexia: A cross-linguistic perspective. Annals of Dyslexia, 52, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granger, C. W. J. & Teräsvirta, T. (1997). Modelling nonlinear economic relationships: Advanced texts in econometrics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guttman, L. (1944). A basis for scaling qualitative data. American Sociological Review, 9, 139–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanlon, H. W., Thatcher, R. W. & Cline, M. J. (1999). Gender differences in the development of EEG coherence in normal children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 16, 479–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudspeth, W. J. & Pribram, K. H. (1992). Psychophysiological indices of cerebral maturation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 12, 19–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, P. R. (2002). Neural plasticity: The effects of environment on the development of the cerebral cortex, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Immordino, M. H. (2001). Working memory for music and language: Do we develop analogous systems based on similar symbolic experience? Qualifying Paper, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.
Kitchener, K. S., Lynch, C. L., Fischer, K. W. & Wood, P. K. (1993). Developmental range of reflective judgment: The effect of contextual support and practice on developmental stage. Developmental Psychology, 29, 893–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, C. C. & Fischer, K. W. (1992). Learning to read words: Individual differences in developmental sequences. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 13, 377–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krus, D. J. (1977). Order analysis: An inferential model of dimensional analysis and scaling. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37, 587–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaBerge, D. & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matousek, M. & Petersén, I. (1973). Frequency analysis of the EEG in normal children and adolescents. In Kellaway, P. & Petersén, I. (eds), Automation of clinical electroencephalography, 75–102. New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
McCall, R. B. (1983). Exploring developmental transitions in mental performance. In Fischer, K. W. (ed.), Levels and transitions in children's development (Vol. 21, pp. 65–80). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Nunez, P. (1981). Electric fields of the brain: The neurophysics of EEG, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nunez, P. (1995). Neocortical dynamics and human EEG rhythms, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paré-Blagoev, E. J., Cestnick, L., Rose, T., Clark, J., Misra, M., Katzir-Cohen, T. & Poldrack, R. (2002). The neural basis of phonological awareness in normal-reading children examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Journal Of Cognitive Neuroscience, F53(Suppl S April).Google Scholar
Pascual-Marqui, R. D.Valdes-Sosa, P. A. & Alvarez-Amador, A. (1988). A parametric model for multichannel EEG spectra. International Journal of Neuroscience, 40, 89–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's theory. In Kessen, W. (ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. History, theory, and methods, 103–26. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rakic, P. (1988). Specification of cerebral cortical areas. Science, 241, 170–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rasch, G. (1966). An item analysis which takes individual differences into account. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 19, 49–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, D. & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age. Alexandria, VA: American Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.Google Scholar
Shaywitz, B. A., Shaywitz, S. E., Pugh, K. R., Mencl, W. E., Fulbright, R. K., Skudlarksi, P., Constable, R. T., Marchione, K. E., Fletcher, J. M., Lyon, G. R. & Gore, J. C. (2002). Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with developmental dyslexia. Biological Psychiatry, 52(2), 101–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shultz, T. R. (2003). Computational developmental psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Singer, J. D. & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data analysis: Modeling change and event occurrence. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, I. H. M. (1983). Three dimensional growth of the mouse isocortex. Journal of Anatomy, 137, 683–94.Google ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S. & Griffin, P. (eds) (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Somsen, R. J. M., Klooster, van't B. J., Molen, M. W., Leeuwen, H. M. P. & Licht, R. (1997). Growth spurts in brain maturation during middle childhood as indexed by EEG power spectra. Biological Psychology, 44, 187–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thatcher, R. W. (1992). Cyclic cortical reorganization during early childhood development. Brain and Cognition, 20, 24–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thatcher, R. W. (1994). Cyclic cortical reorganization: Origins of human cognitive development. In Dawson, G. & Fischer, K. W. (eds), Human behavior and the developing brain, 232–66. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Thatcher, R. W. (1998). A predator-prey model of human cerebral development. In Newell, K. & Molenaar, P. (eds), Applications of nonlinear dynamics to developmental process modeling, 87–128. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Thatcher, R. W., Biver, C., Camacho, M., McAlaster, R. & Salazar, A. M. (1998). Biophysical linkage between MRI and EEG coherence in closed head injury. NeuroImage, 7, 352–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thatcher, R. W., Krause, P. & Hrybyk, M. (1986). Corticocortical associations and EEG coherence: a two compartmental model. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 64, 123–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thatcher, R., Lyon, G. R., Rumsey, J. & Krasnegor, N. (eds) (1996). Developmental neuroimaging: Mapping the development of brain and behavior. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Thatcher, R. W., Walker, R. A. & Guidice, S. (1987). Human cerebral hemispheres develop at different rates and ages. Science, 236, 1110–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thelen, E. & Smith, L. B. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Torgesen, J., Wagner, R. & Rashotte, C. (1994). Longitudinal studies of phonological processes of reading. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 27, 276–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallacher, R. & Nowak, A. (1994). Dynamical systems in social psychology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
van Baal, C. (1997). A genetic perspective on the developing brain. Dissertation, Vrije University, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), ISBN: 90-9010363-5.
Beijsterveldt, C. & Baal, G. (2002). Twin and family studies of the human electroencephalogram: A review and a meta-analysis. Biological Psychology, 61, 111–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maas, H. L. J. & Molenaar, P. (1992). A catastrophe-theoretical approach to cognitive development. Psychological Review, 99, 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geert, P. (1991). A dynamic systems model of cognitive and language growth. Psychological Review, 98, 3–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geert, P. (1994). Dynamic systems of development: Change between complexity and chaos. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Geert, P. (1996). The dynamics of Father Brown: Essay review of book A dynamic systems approach to the development of action and thought by E. Thelen & B. Smith. Human Development, 39, 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geert, P. (1998). A dynamic systems model of basic developmental mechanisms: Piaget, Vygotsky, and beyond. Psychological Review, 105, 634–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, trans.). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wohlwill, J. F. (1973). The study of behavioral development. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, M. & Bowers, P. (1999). The “double-deficit hypothesis” for the developmental dyslexias. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, J. J. (1997). EEG simulation: Variation of spectral envelope, pulse synchrony, and 40 Hz oscillation. Biological Cybernetics, 76, 181–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yan, Z. & Fischer, K. W. (2002). Always under construction: Dynamic variations in adult cognitive development. Human Development, 45, 141–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, M., Kulikowich, J. & Barab, S. (1997). The unit of analysis in situated assessment. Instructional Science, 25, 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×