Baby Brains

The human body carries on developing after birth – but the rate of these changes is still in question for developmental biologists. Here scientists take magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of sleeping children’s cerebellums over the first two years of life, showing months 1–5 (top row) and regular intervals afterwards (bottom) from three different angles. While the young brain is constantly growing, it’s growing at a faster rate (warmer colours) during the first six months. The researchers investigated further, analysing the scans from 235 healthy children and looking at how 27 individual regions of their cerebellums change – finding, for example, that changes in specific ‘lobules’ corresponded with milestones in fine motor skills. This data could be used to pinpoint developmental windows for further study, or even to diagnose health issues or injuries during a toddler’s early life.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by Ya Wang and Liangjun Chen, and colleagues
• Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA: UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Cell Reports, April 2023