Newborn brain has to learn how to feed itself
In infants, blood flow scans used for brain imaging may not reveal nerve activity, study suggests
Busy nerve cells in the brain are hungry and beckon oxygen-rich blood to replenish themselves. But active nerve cells in newborn mouse brains can’t yet make this request, and their silence leaves them hungry, scientists report June 22 in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Instead of being a dismal starvation diet, this lean time may actually spur the brain to develop properly. The new results, though, muddy the interpretation of the brain imaging technique called functional MRI when it is used on infants.