Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (DCN) has made significant strides since its inception in the late 1980s. In this concluding chapter, we celebrate the progress made in understanding brain development from prenatal stages to adulthood, exploring genetics, epigenetics, neural foundations, and their connections to cognitive and socioemotional growth. While DCN research has gained public and policy attention, there are still theoretical, methodological, and practical challenges ahead, with the field being relatively young and open to exploration. We highlight key takeaways, emphasizing the intricate relationships between brain development, cognition, and the environment. The chapter discusses ongoing limitations and emerging research areas, aiming to inspire future researchers, particularly graduate students, to explore these promising directions. Lastly, we explore the broader societal impact of DCN research, showcasing its potential to deepen our understanding of human development and learning, bridging the gaps between genes, brain structure and function, and environmental influences. DCNs evolution promises to enrich our knowledge of human development and learning, offering insights that can benefit society.

In this chapter, we explore how our brains help us read and understand written words. Imagine when you started school – you could talk, recognize some letters, and start to hear the sounds in words. These skills lay the groundwork for learning to read. Good language skills make it easier to learn to read. But heres the twist: our brains werent originally built for reading. Weve only been reading for a few thousand years, while weve been using spoken language for tens of thousands of years. So, our brains adapted to this new skill of reading. We also discuss a special part of the brain called the visual word form area that helps us recognize words. We explore how reading changes our brains and why its crucial to have both good language skills and a writing system around to help us become readers. Dyslexia, a reading difficulty, is also discussed. In simple terms, well uncover how our brains enable us to read by adapting to new cultural practices, like writing, and how they use our visual system to make reading possible.

Numbers are an integral part of our daily lives, essential for making sound decisions. Surprisingly, numerical abilities, often termed number sense, begin developing early in life, shaping our foundational understanding of mathematics. This chapter explores the concept of number sense, demonstrating that even young children exhibit sensitivity to numerical magnitudes in everyday problem-solving scenarios. We delve into the transition from non-symbolic to symbolic numbers and its impact on brain development. As children acquire symbolic numerical skills, brain regions supporting number sense are influenced, and experiences refine these representations. We also explore individual differences in mathematical competence and their neural correlates. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of math interventions on brain development, emphasizing the importance of nurturing numeracy skills from an early age. This understanding has far-reaching implications for education policies, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to unlock their numerical wisdom. This chapter illuminates the journey from number sense to mathematical mastery in the developing mind.

This chapter offers a thorough examination of the processes and outcomes of brain plasticity. We begin by unraveling the historical milestones and breakthroughs that initiated the study of brain plasticity. Exploring the intricate world of cellular mechanisms, we outline the core processes underpinning brain plasticity, making this complex topic accessible. We then delve into the three primary types of brain plasticity: experience-independent, experience-expectant, and experience-dependent, showcasing how they depend on environmental inputs to varying degrees. The concept of critical periods emerges as a central theme. We explore the regulatory mechanisms governing the opening and closing of critical periods and why this adaptive feature is essential for brain development. Further, we outline the expansion-normalization hypothesis, providing evidence that sheds light on how brain plasticity evolves over the course of development. Finally, we explore the profound impact of early life adversity on shaping the developing brain, offering insights into the lifelong consequences of such experiences

In this chapter, we delve into the intricate domains of working memory (WM) and executive functions (EFs), two pivotal cognitive processes. We elucidate WM, delineate its subcomponents, and elucidate the tasks employed to evaluate them. The chapter explores the neural foundations of WM and EFs, spotlighting the key brain regions and networks implicated in these cognitive operations. We unravel the developmental trajectory of WM throughout childhood and adolescence, emphasizing the underlying brain changes fueling this progression. A distinction is made between cool EFs, which function in emotionally neutral contexts, and hot EFs, which govern behavior in high-stakes scenarios. We underscore the influence of WM and EFs on academic achievement, especially in educational and problem-solving contexts. The chapter also provides insights into strategies for enhancing academic performance by either minimizing WM and EF demands or refining these cognitive faculties.

Our visual system is critical to accessing information and communicating with others. The visual pathway begins with a photon of light traveling through the pupil of the eye to the retinal photoreceptors to induce a signaling cascade responsible for transmitting electrical information to the brain.

There are in the order of 86 billion neurons within a human brain. Communication between these neurons is achieved at highly specialized junctions called synapses. Synapses can be chemical or electrical.

Traumatic brain injury(TBI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with an estimated annual incidence of 69 million individuals worldwide. In 2014, the CDC documented 2.5 million TBI-related emergency department visits in the United States with 288,000 TBI-related hospitalizations and 56,800 TBI-associated mortalities. Furthermore, TBI is the leading cause of long-term disability in children and young adults within the US population, with annual cost estimates in patients suffering from TBI varying from $56 billion to $221 billion.

Basic concepts surrounding probability theory and statistics are discussed, beginning with an introduction of experiments, sample spaces, and events. Then, the idea of random variables and probability distributions are introduced, along with the differences between the continuous and discrete cases and thus also probability density functions and probability mass functions. Concepts surrounding conditional probability, dependence, joint distributions, expectation, and variance are also discussed. The important theorems of probability, namely the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem, are also introduced, along with differences between the frequentist and Bayesian interpretations of probability, before moving on to concepts from statistics. Statistical topics introduced include point estimates, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and p-values, including frequentist and Bayesian perspectives on these topics. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of topics in modern statistics.

In this chapter we survey the clinical and pathophysiologic principles of gliomas, the primary tumors of the central nervous system. We describe the histologic and clinical features of the main glioma subtypes, including diffuse astrocytic and oligodendroglial gliomas, as well as circumscribed gliomas such as pilocytic astrocytoma and ependymoma. In 2016 the World Health Organization incorporated genetic markers into the diagnostic criteria for gliomas. We discuss the key molecular discoveries that underlie these diagnostic changes, including IDH mutations and 1p/19q codeletion in diffuse gliomas, and the RELA fusion in ependymomas. We provide an overview of the molecular processes and pathways fundamental to gliomagenesis, including disruptions in cell cycle checkpoints, growth factor signaling, telomere maintenance, and epigenetic regulation. Finally, we highlight the physiologic mechanisms of important clinical sequelae of gliomas, including cerebral edema, immune dysregulation, and systemic hypercoagulability.

Ultrasound(US) is a longitudinal mechanical wave characterized by a frequency higher than 20,000 Hz. US generation is possible because of the discovery of the piezoelectric effect by the Curie brothers in 1880 and the inverse effect by Gabriel Lippmann one year later. The first concrete application for piezoelectric technology was during World War I, when, in 1917, Paul Langevin developed an ultrasonic submarine detector. Progress has led to the introduction of piezoelectric technology in all sectors. Concerning medical applications, the most significant is represented by US-based imaging and treatment.

The human spine consists of 33 vertebrae grouped into five regions. From superior to inferior there are seven cervical, 12 thoracic, five lumbar, five fused sacral, and four small fused coccygeal vertebrae. The spine is a functionally complex and significant component of the human body that not only provides bony protection to the spinal cord but also provides an incredible amount of flexibility to the trunk and serves as the mechanical linkage between the upper and lower extremities, allowing movement in all three planes. Biomechanics, the application of mechanical principles to living organisms, is crucial in understanding how the bony and soft spinal components interact to ensure spinal stability, and how this is affected by degenerative disorders, trauma, and tumors.

The adoption of magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) into clinical practice brought about a revolution in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological illness, and has dramatically advanced the study of brain anatomy. Early MRI resolved structures in the brain with comparatively poor resolution on the order of 2.5 mm, with limited methods of amplifying contrast between different tissues. Advances in imaging sequences and analytical methods, combined with improvements in spatial resolution and contrast modalities, have dramatically increased the diagnostic and treatment utility of MRI in neurosurgery. Over time, MRI has been used to study and diagnose nervous system diseases of all kinds, from brain tumors, to stroke, to multiple sclerosis. Today, MRI techniques enable the in-vivo study of brain microstructure, connectivity, functional activity, tissue composition, and blood flow; supports surgical planning; and provides critical feedback during selected neurosurgical interventions.

Maximizing extent of resection while minimizing neurological morbidity is a key tenet of glioma and epilepsy surgery. Numerous intraoperative and preoperative techniques exist to assess functional domains including motor and language. In this chapter, we describe the primary methods used to map brain function, with a focus on highlighting the neuroscience principles behind common language tasks used for language mapping.

Due to improvements in population health, systemic cancer therapies and screening tools, the incidence of brain cancer metastases has continued to rise. The constituent cells possess unique characteristics that allow them to penetrate the blood–brain barrier, colonize the central nervous system, and co-opt their surroundings to thrive while evading surveillance by the immune system. This presents a unique challenge both to the multidisciplinary teams that care for these patients and the investigators striving to leverage these tumors’ distinctive attributes into novel treatments. In this chapter, we outline the pathways and mechanisms underlying the development and survival of brain metastases, and how they inform current and emerging treatment strategies.