BrainBlog

From the NIH on the 18th of May: NIH Study Tracks Brain Development in Some 500 Children across U.S. First Report Looks at Intelligence, Behaviors from Ages 6-18 Children appear to approach adult levels of performance on many basic cognitive and motor skills by age 11 or 12, according to a new study coordinated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Study of Normal Brain Development is tracking brain and behavioral development in about 500 healthy American children, from birth to age 18. A report published online today by the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society contains the first glimpse of behavioral data — covering IQ, motor dexterity, language, computation, and social skills — collected from children ages 6 to 18. The study "will provide researchers with a reference point for how the normal brain develops, so that they can better understand what goes wrong in children who have brain abnormalities caused by gene...