According to Ronald Kotulak's article, Learning How to Use the Brain, genes and evironment are likely to be of equal importance. The world is experienced through the senses of vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, which teaches the brain what to become. In other words, "the brain needs the right kind of stimulation to teach the brain cells how to do their jobs," stated Kotulak's article. The article continues by saying that there is a possibility that the wrong kind of stimulation, such as exposure to violence could be damaging to a child's brain. He writes that many scientist now fear that brain cells may not learn what they are suppose to, due to lack of normal stimulation, such as being overexposed to violence and stress. When this happens the "cells rewire trillions of connections that create chemical pathways of aggression."
However, Kotulak's article continues, that early intervention can raise babies IQ's and reduce behavioral problems. He reports a study by, Craig Ramey, with children starting at six weeks of age exposed to an intervention program. Impoverished children exposed to nurturing and mentally stimulating experiences had IQ's in the normal range. Children, not in the intervention program, averaged IQ's twenty points lower. At twelve years, fifty percent of the children in the control group, living unstimulating lives, had failed one or more grades. In the intervention group, only thirteen percent had a simular failure record.
Kotulak's article also sites other studies that showed stress harmones were reduced when babies were massaged twice a week for fifteen minutes, such as the study by Saul Schauberg of Duke University and Tiffany Field of the University of Miami. The researchers found that babies held and rubbed benefited in weight gain and lower stress harmones. Field found that babies massaged cried less, increased weight more, and showed more improvemnet in measures of emotionality, socialbility, and soothability temperament.
Katulak also indicated that researchers found that genes could be altered by environmental stimulation to work harder or work less, sometimes increasing a person's risk of aggression or violence. He states that mutated genes are more prone to the affects of environmental factors such as alcohol and stress, making some people with these mutations more prone to violence. For a complete explanation of this subject, access The Brain Lab:Learning How to Use the Brain, by Ronald Kotulak, Science Writer for the Chicago Tribune.
