Unlocking The Baby Brain

When you look at a newborn baby, what do you think is behind those sweet little unfocused eyes?

For a long time, scientists thought “nothing much.” In fact, until the 1970s doctors would perform surgery on infants without anesthesia (!!) thinking that they were so unconscious they could not feel pain. As it turns out, the infant brain is a lot more active than previously thought.

Jonah Lehrer wrote an article for the Boston Globe a week or so back called “Inside the Baby Brain” that examines this question, and it’s absolutely fascinating (Lehrer is a really good science writer for the layperson, I think). It talks about how babies’ brains are more like lanterns, casting a diffuse glow on everything, versus the adult brain which is more like the intense, focused beam of a flashlight.

One example he gives is a study where kids were shown two cards, but asked to remember only the one on the right. The more focused brains of adults and older children could perform the task easily, while the more diffuse brains of young children were more likely to remember the card they were told to ignore.

This is thought to help children learn about the world. As one psychologist Lehrer interviewed said, “….children, it turns out, are much better at picking up on all the extraneous stuff that’s going on… And this makes sense: If you don’t know how the world works, then how do you know what to focus on? You should try to take everything in.”

Just another way these unique little people we live with are so intriguing.