Understanding Brain Development: How Brain Circuits and Maturation Explain Behavior

Understanding Brain Development: How Brain Circuits and Maturation Explain Behavior is organized by Institute for Brain Potential (IBP).

Initial Release Date: 08/29/2022
Expiration Date: 08/29/2025

Duration: A 6-Hour Home Study Program for Health Professionals.

Description: 
Advances in research have shed light on how the brain develops in the early years and how brain circuits mature and become wired in the adult brain.

These findings provide a much better understanding of the basis of developmental disorders and psychopathology that begins in early life.

Participants completing this program should be able to identify:
• Development of key cognitive abilities
• Development and maturation of brain circuits, especially in emotional and reward systems,
• Brain mechanisms underlying developmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, Down syndrome, and schizophrenia,
• The role of early life experience and how infants can inherit the trauma and stress experienced by their parents.
• The role of early life stress and fragmentation of maternal care in the development of later adult psychopathology including depression and PTSD, and
• Strategies to better understand and help children and adolescents with vulnerabilities that increase the risk of mental disorders.

Development of Cognitive Abilities
• Learning and Memory
• Language
• Non-Verbal Abilities

Brain Circuits and Early Childhood Development
• What Makes Us Human? Brain size, circuits, intelligence that enable tool use, language, and imagining of the future
• The Developing Brain
• Steroid Hormones and Brain Circuits
• Stages of Early Cognitive Development
• Development of Impulse Control

Developmental Disorders
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder
• Schizophrenia Spectrum
• Mood Disorders
• Generalized Anxiety and PTSD

Environmental Effects on Brain Development
• Stress Experienced by One’s Parents
• Impact of Early Life Events
• Environmental Effects on Brain Plasticity
• Adult Outcomes of Early Life Events

Strategies for Increasing Developmental Resilience
• The Developing Brain
• Increasing Stress-Resilience in School Settings
• Full Spectrum Strategies To Improve Stress Resilience