Course Syllabus
The Developing Brain |
 |
| Semester & Location: |
Spring 2018 - DIS Stockholm |
| Type & Credits: |
Elective Course - 3 credits |
| Major Disciplines: |
Human Development, Neuroscience, Psychology |
| Faculty Members: |
Élodie Cauvet |
| Program Director: |
Carla Cartano - cca@dis.dk |
| Time & Place: |
Tuesdays & Fridays, 11.40 - 13.00 Classroom 1D409 |
Description of Course
Prerequisite: one semester of neuroscience, physiological psychology, or biological psychology at the university level.
A cognitive behavioral neuroscience perspective will be used to explore the normal development of the child, from infancy to adolescence with regards to perception, attention, language, learning, memory, executive function, emotion and social cognition. Brain structures and functions that support these processes developmentally, such as neuroplasticity and critical/sensitive periods will be considered, as will the implications of culture and the social context. Scandinavian perspectives will be addressed.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Describe the main theoretical perspectives in developmental neuroscience.
- Describe common research methods, and their uses, in developmental neuroscience.
- Read and summarize scientific papers within the field of developmental neuroscience
- Conduct observations of atypical and typical child behavior, and connect to theories of neurological development.
- Identify milestones of typical development, behavioral and neurological (and identify delays): both through observation of behavior and measures of neurological functioning.
- Describe cultural differences (especially comparing Scandinavia to North America) that might affect neurological development and behavioral repertoires
- Describe implications of neurodevelopmental disorders on the brain- and behavior level
Faculty
Instructors:
Élodie Cauvet obtained her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris (France). Her research interest started with language acquisition in infants leading to the study of the cerebral processing of language and music in adults. She became interested in neurodevelopmental disorders starting with developmental dyslexia then expending into autism spectrum disorders as well as ADHD. She is using techniques from psychology as well as neuroimaging in her research, this includes MRI (anatomical and functional) as well as EEG and eye tracking. She has been conducting her latest research at Karolinska Institutet Center for Neuro-developmental Disorders (KIND). Her interests include social cognitive skills, empathy and emotion processing within the whole spectrum of functioning from typicality till disorders such as ASD. With DIS since 2016.
Readings
Required Textbook
Johnson, H. & de Haan, M. (2015). Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience: An Introduction (4th Edition). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Articles and Other Media on Canvas
Adolph, K. E., Cole, W. G., Komati, M., Garciaguirre, J. S., Badaly, D., Lingeman, J. M., ... & Sotsky, R. B. (2012). How do you learn to walk? Thousands of steps and dozens of falls per day. Psychological science, 23(11), 1387-1394.
Adolph, K.E, Berger, S.E., Leo, A.J. (2011). Developmental continuity? Crawling, cruising and walking, Develop- mental Science, 14(2), 306-318.
Anderson, V., Spencer-Smith, M., & Wood, A. (2011). Do children really recover better? Neurobehavioural plas- ticity after early brain insult. Brain. 1-15.
Brouwer, R.M., Koenis, M.M.G., Schnack, H.G, van Baal, G.C., van Soelen, I.L.C, Hulshoff Pol, H.E., (2015) Lon- gitudinal development of hormone levels and grey matter density in 9 and 12-year-old twins, Behavior Ge- netics, 45(5), 313 – 323.
Carrion‐Castillo, A., Franke, B., & Fisher, S. E. (2013). Molecular genetics of dyslexia: an overview. Dyslexia, 19(4), 214-240.
Decety, J., & Svetlova, M. (2012). Putting together phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspectives on empathy. De- velopmental cognitive neuroscience, 2(1), 1-24.
Ekblad, M., Korkeila, J., & Lehtonen, L. (2015). Smoking during pregnancy affects foetal brain development. Acta Paediatrica, 104(1), 12-18.
Gilbert, C. D., & Li, W. (2013). Top-down influences on visual processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(5), 350-363.
Goddings, A-L. (2014). The Role of puberty in human adolescent brain development, Chapter from Brain Crosstalk in Puberty and Adolescence, Ed: Bourguignon, J-P., Carel, J-C., Christen, Y., Springer International Pub- lishing. 75 – 83.
Hepper, P. (2015). Behavior During the Prenatal Period: Adaptive for Development and Survival. Child Develop- ment Perspectives, 9(1), 38-43
Jardri, R., Houfflin-Debarge, V., Delion, P., Pruvo, J-P., Thomas, P., Pins, D. (2012). Assessing fetal response to maternal speech using a noninvasive functional brain imaging technique. International Journal of Develop- mental Neuroscience, 30, 159-161.
Johnson, M. H., & DeHaan, M. (2015). Developmental cognitive neuroscience: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons. (selected chapters)
Juárez, S.P., Merlo, J. (2013) The Effect of Swedish Snuff (Snus) on Offspring Birthweight: A Sibling Analysis. PLoS ONE 8(6): e65611. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0065611
Kandel (2000): Principles of Neural Science, Chapter 1 and 2
Klingberg, T. (2014). Childhood cognitive development as a skill. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(11), 573-579
Kolb, B., & Fantie, B. D. (2009). Development of the child’s brain and behavior. In Handbook of clinical child neuropsychology (pp. 19-46). Springer US.
Kolb, B., Mychasiuk, R., & Gibb, R. (2014). Brain development, experience, and behavior. Pediatric blood & can- cer, 61(10), 1720-1723.
Lacquaniti, F., Ivanenko, Y.P., Zago, M., (2012) Development of human locomotion, Current Opinion in Neurobi- ology, 22(5), 822-828.
Lee, G. Y., & Kisilevsky, B. S. (2014). Fetuses respond to father's voice but prefer mother's voice after birth.
Developmental psychobiology, 56(1), 1-11
Mampe, B., Friederici, A.D., Christophe, A., Wemke K. (2009) Newborns’ cry melody is shaped by their native language, Current Biology, 19(23), 1994-1997.
Newcombe, N. S. (2013). Cognitive development: changing views of cognitive change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Re- views: Cognitive Science, 4(5), 479-491.
Petersen, S. E., & Posner, M. I. (2012). The attention system of the human brain: 20 years after. Annual review of neuroscience, 35, 73.
Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (2009). Perceptual organization in infancy: bottom-up and top-down influences. Op- tometry & Vision Science, 86(6), 589-594.
Rapin, I., (2016). Dyscalculia and the calculating brain, Pediatric Neurology, 61, 11-20.
Reid, V., Dunn, K., Young, R.,Amu, J., Donovan, T. & Reissland, N., (2017). The human fetus preferentially engages with face-like visual stimuli, Current Biology, 27, 1825-1828
Skagerström, J., Alehagen, S., Häggström-Nordin, E., Årestedt, K., & Nilsen, P. (2013). Prevalence of alcohol use before and during pregnancy and predictors of drinking during pregnancy: a cross sectional study in Swe- den. BMC public health, 13(1), 1.
Thompson, B. L., Levitt, P., & Stanwood, G. D. (2009). Prenatal exposure to drugs: effects on brain development and implications for policy and education. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(4), 303-312.
Vandermosten, M., Hoeft, F., Norton, E.S. (2016) Integrating MRI brain imaging studies of pre-reading children with current theories of developmental dyslexia: a review and quantitative meta-analysis, Current Opinion in Behavioral Science, 10, 155-161.
Ward, J. (2013). Synesthesia. Annual review of psychology, 64, 49-75.
Wells, M. B., & Lang, S. N. (2016). Supporting same‐sex mothers in the Nordic child health field: a systematic literature review and meta‐synthesis of the most gender equal countries. Journal of clinical nursing, 25 (23-24), 3469-3483
Wells; M.B. (2016). Literature review shows that fathers are still not receiving the support they want and need from Swedish child health profesionals, Acta Paediatrica, 105, 1014-1023
Field Studies
Wednesday, January 24th 8:30-12:30
Neuromethods tour, visiting the MR Center at Karolinska Hospital and the Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet (KIND). KIND is a combined clinic and research institute, working with children with developmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. At KIND, research is conducted using both neuropsychological assessments and neuroimaging, in order to provide evidence based therapy for children and parents.
Wednesday, February 28th 13:00 - 17:00
Center för Sinnesstimulering - Korallen
The coral is aimed at children with multiple function impairment between the ages of 0-12 years who suffer from grave intellectual impairment, often in combination with moderate to severe movement impairment. At the coral, they offer an exciting and pleasurable environment. The coral contains five different spaces. In the rooms, you can experience the movements of the water, the rhythm of the music, the warmth and vibrations of the water bed, light games and much more.
Guest Lecturers
Michael Wells is an American who moved to Sweden after completing his Masters degree in Human Development and Family Science. He has a PhD from Uppsala University in Women’s and Children’s Health. He currently works as postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet where his focus is on the implementation and evaluation of intervention studies: one focusing on creating equality for fathers in the Swedish child health field and another on helping high school dropouts gain employment. He is an expert on parenting and how it is influenced by the child health field and via Swedish family policies.
Kristiina Tammimies is a senior researcher at Karolinska Institutet. Her research aims to understand how genetic factors contribute to the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and how these factors translate into biological pathways affecting brain development using genome-wide techniques such as whole genome sequencing. Here, Kristiina will give an introduction into genetic factors affecting NDDs and the techniques used to to study them.
Approach to Teaching
As an enthusiastic teacher, I try to make all classes interactive and interesting. Classes include both lectures by the teacher and discussions led by the students. Both are mixed during each class.
It is very important that the content is clear for all students. So you are encouraged to ask questions and talk to me if you feel that there are still unclear zones after the classes.
Expectations of the Students
Students are expected to participate actively in class. This includes taking part in the discussions, asking or answering questions. There are no stupid questions and I encourage and reward student expression. Opinions should be expressed, especially when they refer to scientific content. Students have to inform the teacher in advance in case they can not attend a class. Missing a class unexcused will affect the active participation grade.
Students are expected to answer the quiz online before the class.
Students are expected to read the required readings before class.
Students are responsible for their learning. This implies taking the notes from the lecture, summarizing the content of both lectures and discussions.
Slides include graphs, pictures and illustrations necessary to understand the class. Students are expected to take notes complementing and explaining the slides. Slides are a support and should be treated as such and not as the main source of info required. Class content delivered by the teachers need to be written down by the students individually.
Main discussion will be summarized by the students and transcribed on white board and picture of these will be available on Canvas in respective classes.
Evaluation
The course consists of lectures, discussions and assignments at home and in class. Students attendance of the classes and their active participation in the discussions are taken into account in the evaluation. In discussions and assignments, students are required to demonstrate that they read the literature for the classes and that they are able to apply their knowledge. Showing independent and critical thinking is also subject to evaluation.
Grading
Detailed assignment descriptions and grading rubrics for each assignment are available on canvas.
| Assignment |
Percent |
| Active class participation (including quizz) |
15% |
| Basic Concepts - written Exam |
10% |
|
Prenatal development and Dietary advice: cross cultural comparison |
15% |
|
Scientific paper presentation and evaluation |
20% |
|
Typical and atypical child behavior |
20% |
| Final written exam |
20% |
| Total |
100% |
Descriptions of assignments
Active class participation (15%): The student is active in discussions and group work. Active participation and engagement includes asking questions related to readings and material presented in the class and taking part in discussions and being active during field trips and guest lectures. Active participation means to contribute on own initiative. See Canvas for a class participation grading active_class_Participation_rubric0.docx
Basic concepts - written exam (10%):
Due Date: IN CLASS February 2nd.
Short exam covering basic neurological concepts, based on Johnson and DeHaan (2015), chapters 1 and 2, and Kandel (2000) chapter 1 and 2. Covered topics are types of neurons, principles of electric and chemical functions of neurons, general architecture of the adult brain, and the most widely used research methods for neuroscience, (e.g. fMRI, EEG, lesions) and basic genetic concepts. The test will take about 45 minutes, and consists of 13 short answer questions. The test will be conducted during class time, and no study materials will be allowed during the test. The purpose of this first exam is to ensure a common ground of basic knowledge, on which the remaining course will continue to build upon using more in-depth analysis and a focus on developmental issues. More information, including a study guide (study_guide1.docx), is available on Canvas.
Prenatal development and Dietary advice: cross cultural comparison (15%):
Due Date: March 2nd midnight for the essay + presentation on the 2nd of March at 11:40 (normal class time)
Each student chooses one dietary element (e.g. alcohol, vitamin A, caffeine, unpasteurized milk, raw meat, sushi ... ) on the 23rd of February. She/he writes an essay describing:
- how pregnancy and future mother might be impacted by the consumption of the element
- how prenatal development (in particular neurological) is hypothesized to be affected by the product,
- what cognitive/behavioral deficits (attention, perception, executive function, memory, etc.) this might result in after birth.
The student should also evaluate what level of scientific evidence supports the advice. A discussion about the effect of culture on the consumption of this dietary element must be included by comparing at least 2 different countries/culture. It should include how/if the recommendation differ depending on country, and how/if the difference in recommendation affect the child population (it this is known). The essay should be 4 page long (not counting title page and references), APA style (1.5 line spacing) and handed out through Canvas on March 2nd. See Canvas for a detailed grading rubric (Rubric #2 prenatal dietary advice.docx). Each student prepares a brief presentation for class (5-minutes; not included in grade), to be presented March 2nd. Note that each student must choose a different food product.
Scientific paper presentation and evaluation (20%):
Due Date: March 23rd
Students will evaluate a scientific article in pairs at home and prepare a powerpoint presentation including the methods, outcomes and conclusions from the article (max 8 slides). They will further evaluate the quality of the article according to guidelines discussed beforehand and present their evaluation. Each student pair gives a joint 5 to 10 minute presentation for class followed by a 5 minutes discussion with the rest of the class (powerpoint-slides are handed in for grading through Canvas), for March 23rd. See Canvas for a detailed Rubric #3 scientific paper evaluation.docx
Typical and atypical child behavior (20%):
Due Date: April 13th
Before class:The students watch two video clips picturing typically developing children and the developmental milestones acquired at both specific ages (18 months and 3 years). They also watch 5 video clips picturing atypical behaviors from children of the same ages. They take short notes.
In class: In groups of 2: Each group gets assigned to one specific video of atypical kid. They watch it together once. Then each student chooses one cognitive/behavioral skill in which the toddlers differ. This skill will constitute their essay's topic. The group then watches the video a couple of times paying specific attention the chosen skill. Then each group discusses the chosen skills and how it relates to the video. Questions will guide the discussion. 15min. Whole class: each groups feeds back the chosen cognitive skills and the summaries of the discussions. Then all discuss together. During the time left, they start writing their essay and ask more questions.
Assignment: Using course literature but also scientific literature search, each student individually writes a brief essay (4-5 pages, excluding references) covering how this skill typically develops through infancy (including milestone-ages), and what neurological development can be linked to it. The essay should refer the observed differences between toddlers regarding this skill, exhibited during the video-recordings.
Examples of chosen topics can be a specific language skill (naming activities or objects, or responding to requests from parents), interacting with objects and the environment, attention, social skills or decision making. Assignment is started in class on April 6th and handed in through canvas on April 13th.
See Canvas for a detailed grading rubric (#4).Rubric4_typical_atypical_child_behvior.docx
Final written exam (20%):
Due Date: IN CLASS: TBA
Covering course concepts and milestones for neurological and behavioral development. The exam will last for 2 hours, and consist of 12 short-answer questions, 2 essay questions and 12 multiple choice questions. No study materials will be allowed. The purpose of the final written exam is to assess the understanding of the contents and learning objectives of the course. As compared to the basic concepts exam (#1), this written exam will focus on developmental issues (but concepts from the whole course, including the first weeks, may be included). The whole content of the class can be tested. The study guide includes all the learning objectives (for each class) that can be tested during the final exam. More information, including a detailed study guide and grading rubric rubrics #5_final_exam.docx, are available on Canvas
Academic Regulations
Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:
DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.org
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
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