Professor Steven Rose The Open University & Gresham College London

1. Professor Steven RoseThe Open University &Gresham College London Neuroscience, Neuroeducation and Neuromyths

2. Themes • 1. What can neuroscience say about the developing brain and mind? • 2. Some educational neuromyths • 3. Drugging and enhancing children • 4. Has neuroscience anything useful to say to teachers and educationalists?

3. The developing brain and mind

4. Can you spot the difference? • Steven and the chimp are 98.8% genetically identical

5. But that doesn’t mean much • Steven is also about 35% genetically identical to a daffodil and has about the same number of genes (20000) as a fruitfly

6. Chimps and Children Compared • Kanzi can construct simple sentences to express wants….but can get no further • Mali and Saul can handle abstract concepts, discuss distant future plans…and will go on growing

7. The key lies in development • The key is neither genes nor environment as opposites (so called nature/nurture), but development, a process that engages both genes and environment in ontogeny • Ontogeny is an active process, in which organisms construct themselves within constraints. • This is autopoiesis

8. Human and Chimp Brains

9. Humans v Chimps • Long-lived • Social • Theory of mind • Parenting/teaching • Neotenous • Tool-users • Symbol-users • Both • Both • Both • Human alloparents- Hrdy • Humans more so • Humans more so • Only humans

10. The meaning of neoteny • Humans born prematurely, like pigs, unlike rats • Brain weight at birth 25% adult (350g) • At 6 months 50% of adult • At 1 year 60% • At 2.5 years 75% • At 6 years 90% • At 10 years 95% • At puberty 1250g girls, 1375 boys • Average adult weight 1300-1500g

11. Human Brain Development

12. Forest of Neurons

13. Entering the Brain

14. Some Numbers 20,000 genes • 100,000 proteins • 100,000,000,000 neurons • 100,000,000,000,000 synapses

15. 50mm3 cortex contains: • 5 million neurons • Up to 50 billion synapses • 22km dendrites • 220 km axons

16. And some systems • The brain consists of a multitude of mini-organs, massively interconnected • For instance, there are about 30 different ‘modules’ in the visual cortex, each responsible for analysing one feature of the environment - colour, shape, motion, etc. • Problem - how are all these bound together? • Is there a homunculus?

18. Central command? or self-organisation? • It used to be thought that all these regions ‘reported’ upwards to some command centre in the brain - a so-called homunculus • We now know there is no homunculus - the brain is a self-organising multiply reentrant system; brain and body in constant interaction • The brain is embodied, the person is embedded

19. Developing Competences • Forget ‘innateness,’ gene/environment dichotomies, and think autopoiesis. • In the first three years of life the baby has to learn motor coordination, recognition of others especially care-givers, ‘theory of mind,’ speech, walking, memory… • These are the so-called sensitive periods • NOT ‘CRITICAL’!

20. Baby becomes Infant • The day-old baby has to be a competent suckler and to become a chewing infant - harder than you might imagine!

21. Specificity • Eye and brain grow at different rates postnatally, so connections are continually being broken and remade, but orderly vision remains

22. Dynamics and Plasticity • The brain is highly dynamic both millisecond by millisecond and over a lifetime in response to experience. This is brain plasticity - the key to our survival as individuals and as a species

23. Plasticity • Our perception is shaped by experience, for instance, rural versus urban

24. Memory - eidetic versus linear

25. The effect of literacy on brain structure. M Carreiraset al. Nature461, 983-986 (2009) doi:10.1038/nature08461

26. Learning makes new connections in the brain

27. Some Neuromyths • You only use 10% of your brain • Once damaged, brain recovery is impossible • ‘Brain gyms’ and IQ supplements • Left brain is cognitive, right brain emotional • Men are left brained, women right brained • Men’s brains are heavier than women’s

28. Magnetoencephalography • SQUIDS detect the minute magnetic fields around the brain - a billionth of the earth’s field

29. Supermarket Choices

30. Shopping Lights up the Brainactive regions over the first second when making a supermarket choice

31. Remembering and Choosing

32. Another Myth – Brain Gyms

33. Drugging Children?

34. The strange case of ADHD • children with AD/HD .. disturb their parents and teachers because their classroom achievement is erratic… a source of exasperation to the ...teacher. .. ..This is the pupil who never seems to be in his or her seat, who is constantly bothering classmates, and can be relied upon for little other than being generally off task. All categories can be frustrating to teach because of their apparent unpredictability; their failure to conform to expectations, and their tendency not to learn from their mistakes (Paul Cooper, educationalist)

35. The strange case of ADHD and ritalin • Increase in US ADHD diagnoses • 1988: 500,000 • 2011: 5,400,000 (9.5% of all US children) • Increase in UK ritalin prescriptions • 1991 2000 • 1997 92,000 2011 660,000

36. Enhancing Children?

37. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

38. So what are the ethical issues? • Trading Ritalin in the playground? • Putting current across your child’s head? • Buying extra coaching or private education?

39. Some brain truths(or what we currently believe!) • Children’s brains are not miniature adults • Boys’ and girls’ brains mature at slightly different rates • Culture and technology change brains • We get slower as we get older, our brains shrink a bit and neurons die off • But we go on learning and changing our brains throughout our lives • Use it or lose it!

40. Has neuroscience anything useful to say to teachers and educationalists? • To be frank, not much you didn’t know already • But on the other hand teachers and educationalists have a lot to teach neuroscientists!