A team of researchers studying the impact of stress upon children has published new evidence suggesting that there is a “sensitive period” lasting through age 5 in which severe stress appears to have its greatest impact on the hippocampus, a part of the brain known to be stress-sensitive.
ASU and Stanford study shows how the hippocampus provides information to other brain areas during learning.
Novel findings may further understanding of age-related dementia.
By increasing the excitability of a subpopulation of “defective” inhibitory neurons, researchers at the UNIGE restore the synchronization of neural networks in the hippocampus, and are thus able to suppress certain behavioural symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
For kids living in picket-fence suburbia, these experiences might be rare. But for their peers in urban poverty, they are all too commonplace.
