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Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development

Insights from Children with Perinatal Brain Injury

Judy S Reilly author Joan Stiles author Susan C Levine author Doris A Trauner author Ruth Nass author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:14th Jun '12

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development cover

The advent of modern neurobiological methods over the last three decades has provided overwhelming evidence that it is the interaction of genetic factors and the experience of the individual that guides and supports brain development. Brains do not develop normally in the absence of critical genetic signaling, and they do not develop normally in the absence of essential environmental input. The key to understanding the origins and emergence of both the brain and behavior lies in understanding how inherited and environmental factors are engaged in the dynamic and interactive processes that define and direct development of the neurobehavioral system. Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development focuses on children who suffered focal brain insult (typically stroke) in the pre- or perinatal period which provides a model for exploring the dynamic nature of early brain and cognitive development. In most, though not all, of the cases considered, the injuries affect substantial portions of one cerebral hemisphere, resulting in patterns of neural damage that would compromise cognitive ability in adults. However, longitudinal behavioral studies of this population of children have revealed only mild cognitive deficits, and preliminary data from functional brain imaging studies suggest that alternative patterns of functional organization emerge in the wake of early injury. Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development posits that the capacity for adaptation is not the result of early insult. Rather, it reflects normal developmental processes which are both dynamic and adaptive operating against a backdrop of serious perturbation of the neural substrate.

The authors thoroughly cover a vast temporal range of studies, converging the thoughts and findings of researchers from as far back as Broca with those published very recently... the book is chock-full of cautionary notes to clinicians, which could only have been obtained with the benefit of career-long attention to the dynamic process of neurobehavioral development. * Archive of Clinical Neuropsychology, May 2013 *
Clinical neuropsychologists will find this book a useful resource. The authors thoroughly cover a vast temporal range of studies, converging the thoughts and findings of researchers from as far back as Broca with those published very recently. Within a given topic, every effort has been made to synthesize large numbers of studies, often with conflicting findings, and fit them into a global perspective on neurobehavioral development. Moreover, the book is chock-full of cautionary notes to clinicians, which could only have been obtained with the benefit of career-long attention to the dynamic process of neurobehavioral development... The authors thorough coverage of every aspect of development provides a framework for the presentation of an overarching perspective on brain development made possible by decades of research on functional outcome in children with perinatal brain injury. * J. Leigh Leasure for Clinical Neuropsychology, August 2013 *

ISBN: 9780195389944

Dimensions: 165mm x 236mm x 23mm

Weight: 700g

384 pages