To What Extent Do Structural Changes In Children’s Brains Influence Functional Changes In Cognitive Ability?

To what extent do structural changes in children’s brains influence functional changes in cognitive ability? With reference to relevant research evidence consider the relationship between structure and function in the developing brain.

What is going on in human head, structurally and functionally, was the question that intrigued scientists since long time ago. However, only relatively recentlywere they able to start explaining structure and functional processes that take place in human brains. With new discoveries came new questions. Thanks to the newest technologies like MRI or CT, it was possible to define and explain brain structure in sense of neural modules. But how does cognitive process happens and does children’s brain differ from adults in this sense? Maybe the mostproductive way of discovering this is by studying the developing brain in action. This essay will try to examine the relationship between structure and function in children’s brains and to what extent changes in the first influence the latter. In the process it will go through some theoretical views on modularity and modularizations offered by Fodor (1983) and Karmiloff-Smith (1992). Further on it willreview the empirical evidence about the relationship between structure and function provided by different researchers.
Before we start analysing to what extent structural changes influence functional changes in the developing brain it is important to mention that there is an on-going debate about how is brain cortex organized. There are two, somewhat opposing views on the matter and they arerepresented by Fodor and Karmiloff-Smith. They agree to a certain extent that brain functions in modules, what they cannot agree on is whether these modules are innately fixed or are they the result of the interaction between genes and environment (Marechal et al., 2006).
Talking from a nativist standpoint, for Fodor modules are innately specified units. He argues that each module has its predeterminedfunction as a result of a human evolution through time. According to Fodor cognitive modules have three characteristics. They are namely domain-specific which means they have limited input, encapsulated (meaning they work independently) and they occur without conscious control thus mandatory. To Fodor environment was an important factor for evolution of human brain, but it does not play importantrole for each individual development (Marechal et al., 2006).
For Karmiloff-Smith, just like for Fodor, cortex works in modules, however she does not agree with Fodor that they are a fixed, inflexible system. According to her modularization occurs as the brain interacts with the environment and believes that modules are more domain-general. As opposed to Fodor she considers that environment hasa very important role in the development of each individual brain. Karmiloff-Smith continues on to suggest that brain is self-organizing which means that local interactions between neurons create more global and complex functions. This, epigenetic view of modularization of brain seems to be supported by empirical evidence offered by different studies about children’s developing brains. There is aspecial emphasis on young brain’s capacity to recover cognitive abilities after suffering focal brain damage. It is a case with Alex, a two years old boy who suffered a stroke during a surgical procedure. His mother mentions what the doctors told her about Alex’s chances for partial recovery. Older person with same lesions would most probably be permanently paralyzed (The Open University, 2006).This extraordinary capacity of young brain is called plasticity and indicates that other parts of the brain can to some degree, take over functions from the damaged area. If modules were innately specified and inflexible as suggested by Fodor, this characteristic would be impossible since other areas would have limited input for a presented stimuli.

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