Development, Part 2

A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain
by John J. Ratey, M.D.

(Page 2 of 12)

The brain is not a computer that simply executes genetically predetermined programs. Nor is it a passive gray cabbage, victim to the environmental influences that bear upon it. Genes and environment interact to continually change the brain, from the time we are conceived until the moment we die. And we, the owners-to the extent that our genes allow it-can actively shape the way our brains develop throughout the course of our lives. There is a great ongoing debate between different schools of neuroscientists as to whether the brain is merely a "ready-to-respond-to-environment" machine, an idea championed by a group who identify themselves as "connectionists," and those who would say that the brain is genetically made up of "ready-to-access" modules that the environment merely stimulates. However, the majority of neuroscientists see a hybrid, where the broad outlines of the brain's development are under genetic control, while the fine-tuning is up to the interaction of brain and environment.

Certainly, much of the course of our brains' development is determined while we are fetuses and young children. But as we will see, there are many other factors that can alter the process-in pregnancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age. A father's smile, exercise before the workday, a game of chess in the retirement home-everything affects development, and development is a lifelong process.

We are not prisoners of our genes or our environment. Poverty, alienation, drugs, hormonal imbalances, and depression don't dictate failure. Wealth, acceptance, vegetables, and exercise don't guarantee success. Our own free will may be the strongest force directing the development of our brains, and therefore our lives. As Temple's experience shows, the adult brain is both plastic and resilient, and always eager to learn. Experiences, thoughts, actions, and emotions actually change the structure of our brains. By viewing the brain as a muscle that can be weakened or strengthened, we can exercise our ability to determine who we become. Indeed, once we understand how the brain develops, we can train our brains for health, vibrancy, and longevity. Barring a physical illness, there's no reason that we can't stay actively engaged into our nineties.

Research on the brain's development has been fast and furious in this decade. The subject has become so popular that in the last few years it has rated a cover story in Time (three times), Newsweek (twice), and Life, as well as in other major magazines. New imaging technologies and scores of studies are providing enormous insight into ways to help the brain develop in babies, children, and adults, even in fetuses in the womb. Of course, there is also the chance here for misdirection.

The research has even prompted political action at the highest levels of government. In April 1997, Hillary Clinton hosted an all-day White House scientific conference, an unusual event, on new findings indicating that a child's acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills is an active process that may be largely finished before age three. This premise is in stark contrast to the common wisdom of only a few years ago: that infants are largely passive beings who are somewhat unaware of their surroundings or who simply record everything in the environment without editing it. If infants are in fact editing and processing environmental stimuli, it behooves us to make these stimuli such good ones that they can move through them quickly and on to other learning. The problem here is that such notoriety can cause sweeping action that may run ahead of sound clinical trials and testing of new hypotheses. Based on research that is not fully confirmed, panelists at the White House conference urged the adoption of federal programs to increase wages and training for day-care workers, improve parenting education, broaden training of pediatricians, and expand prenatal health-care coverage. The best example of running ahead of research involves the "proof" that exposing infants to classical music enhances their brain development. Several recent studies indicate that this is so, yet others do not, and replication of the positive studies is not yet conclusive. Nonetheless, Georgia governor Zell Miller added $105,000 to his 1998 state budget proposal so that a cassette or compact disk of classical music could be included with the bag of free goodies that hospitals send home with each of the 100,000 babies born in the state each year. Miller's proposal, and his press conference about it, made national headlines. "No one questions that listening to music at a very early age affects the spatial, temporal reasoning that underlies math and engineering, and even chess," he said. "Having that infant listen to soothing music helps those trillions of brain connections to develop."

While the governor's awareness of brain research was commendable, his action might have been premature. The worry is not that it may waste the state's money. As Sandra Trehaub, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who studies infants' perception of music, said in response, "If we really think you can swallow a pill, buy a record or book, or have any one experience that will be the thing that gets you into Harvard or Princeton, then that's an illusion." John Breuer, president of the McDonnell Foundation, a funding organization for biomedical and behavioral research as it affects education, warns that though there may be great advantages to early education programs, neuroscience does not provide reasons for it yet. The link is just beginning to become clear. And as Michael Gazzaniga, a noted neuroscientist at Dartmouth, cautions, we are in danger of being overdone with "politically correct pseudoscience babble" when we allow our enthusiasm to outstrip facts.

Hillary Clinton realized herself that the White House conference could lead to premature and irresponsible decision-making and that the enthusiasm it catalyzed had to be tempered. Appearing on ABC's Good Morning America a week later, she admitted that the hyperfocus on properly stimulating babies "does ratchet up the guilt" about what parents ought and ought not to do.

That is why we will take a careful look at research findings throughout this book, and particularly in this chapter. There is much we can learn about how to improve the development of our brains and those of our children. But we have to keep a trained eye out to distinguish research that can be applied to our daily lives from that which is, for now, simply interesting.

Excerpted from A User's Guide to the Brain by John J. Ratey, M.D. Copyright © 2002 by John J. Ratey, M.D.. Excerpted by permission of Vintage, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

John J. Ratey, M.D., is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has lectured extensively and published many articles on the topic of treating adults with ADD. Dr. Ratey is the author of A User's Guide to the Brain and the co-author of Driven to Distraction. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he has a private practice.