Friday, February 25, 2011
Two Good and Two Hazy
When it comes to the articles that we have been reading over the past few weeks there are concepts that I understand and ones that I am still a little fuzzy on. I understand pruning. I also understand that executive functioning, frontal cortex ect, occur last, after adolescence. What I still do not quite understand is the elimination of gray matter and the increase in white matter, does that mean that gray matter becomes white matter? I understand progenisis in gray matter and then a progeisis in white matter, but then the gray matter starts to decrease and I am unsure as to where it goes or what it turns into. Another thing that I still don't fully understand is whether brain size is affected during adolescence and during all these changes. A few articles mentioned density in the brain changing, but that implies growing of the brain. Do these changes cause the brain to grow and get heavier?
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Progenisis/progeisis? Do you mean progenesis? I'm not sure wha tyou mean by progenesis in gray and white matter... These results are all from normally developing adolescents and they are not the result of progenesis... Perhaps you mean a different word? Progressive/regressive changes?
ReplyDeleteGray matter is partly made up of synaptic connections (dendrites/axon terminals). When you have fewer synapses, it might also look like less gray matter (but it's not that any cells died or anything... think of it as a tree that has fewer branches). Also white matter is typically associated with the creation of new myelin...
The brain does change in volume and density during childhood/adolescence but often those changes are not as significant as changes in connectivity, organization, and reactivity.
Thanks for clairfying what grey matter is Dr Ji!
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