Is the human neonate indeed "physiological premature," as has been frequently stated? How does human neural development compare with that of other primate species? Is early human development a gradual unfolding of neural mechanisms from prenatal to postnatal life, or does it show rapid transformations at particular ages? The aim of this book is to answer these and similar questions about the functional repertoire of the human fetus, neonate, and young infant. Two main theoretical concepts are considered: first, the relationship between neural maturation and the duration of pregnancy and second, the existence of ontogenetic adaptations. Surveys and findings relevant to these concepts are provided by experts from various disciplines involved in research on fetal and preterm development and on the first three months of postnatal life. This book differs from many others summarizing descriptive knowledge of the field by emphasizing new theoretical concepts of early functional development. Recent ultrasound studies of the fetus have contributed greatly to this new approach, which has clear implications for the assessment and care of young infants. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to developmental neurologists, pediatricians and obstetricians, as well as to developmental psychologists and physical anthropologists.

This book shows how, and in what ways, prenatal development serves as a preparation for life after birth. Largely, such explanation stemming from the transnatal continuity theory has been ignored in mainstream developmental psychology. However, since the advent of real-time ultrasonography with humans, and increasingly refined experiements with avian and mammalian species, plausible scenarios linking prenatal and postnatal development are beginning to emerge. One is the theory of fetal programming. Here, the authors provide authoritative reviews of current knowledge regarding continuities and discontinuities between prenatal and postnatal development of brain-behavior relationships across a variety of species, including humans.

Recent scientific studies have brought significant advances in the understanding of basic mental functions such as memory, dreams, identification, repression, which constitute the basis of the psychoanalytical theory. This book focuses on the possibility of interactions between psychoanalysis and neuroscience: emotions and the right hemisphere, serotonin and depression. It is a unique tool for professionals and students in these fields, and for operators of allied disciplines, such as psychology and psychotherapy.

A unique analysis of childhood motor development from the perspectives of both neuropsychology and neurophysiology.

Though much has been written about twins, very little research has been done into their everyday lives, both postnatal and prenatal. In this fascinating new study Alessandra Piontelli follows the development and behaviour of thirty pairs of twins from their early life in the womb through to their third year of childhood. Drawing on detailed ultrasound observations and work with mothers and families in clinical and natural settings, the text traces the subtle ways in which various types of twins live, behave and interact with their unequally shared and unique pre- and postnatal environments. Piontelli shows how from early on distinctive and personal traits can be seen in the behaviour of each member of a twin couple and how these traits continue and strengthen well beyond birth. The book describes not only the behaviour of the twins, but the impact they have on the lives of their family and carers - what family members say, how they react and how the family changes. Scientifically based, but warmly human in content, this unique longitudinal study offers new insight for professionals working with mothers and families of twins and for researchers in human development across a range of disciplines.

The expression 'Neural Networks' refers traditionally to a class of mathematical algorithms that obtain their proper performance while they 'learn' from examples or from experience. As a consequence, they are suitable for performing straightforward and relatively simple tasks like classification, pattern recognition and prediction, as well as more sophisticated tasks like the processing of temporal sequences and the context dependent processing of complex problems. Also, a wide variety of control tasks can be executed by them, and the suggestion is relatively obvious that neural networks perform adequately in such cases because they are thought to mimic the biological nervous system which is also devoted to such tasks. As we shall see, this suggestion is false but does not do any harm as long as it is only the final performance of the algorithm which counts. Neural networks are also used in the modelling of the functioning of (sub systems in) the biological nervous system. It will be clear that in such cases it is certainly not irrelevant how similar their algorithm is to what is precisely going on in the nervous system. Standard artificial neural networks are constructed from 'units' (roughly similar to neurons) that transmit their 'activity' (similar to membrane potentials or to mean firing rates) to other units via 'weight factors' (similar to synaptic coupling efficacies).

This decade has seen a resurgence of interest in the prenatal development of behavior in animals, in part due to new technology which permits noninvasive, indirect monitoring of fetal activity and in part due to improved surgical procedures and other techniques that permit direct monitoring. All of these new techniques and methods are replacing the speculation of the past with empirical data about prenatal behavior. This volume provides a summary of the current state of thought. Historically, researchers have approached the subject from many different fields: child development, pediatric medicine, obstetrics, behavioral embryology, neurobiology, and psychobiology. This present volume attempts to unite these diverse interests by providing a concise introduction to the major conceptual issues, theoretical questions and empirically derived speculation as framed by leading scholars in the field of prenatal behavioral research. Researchers in fetal physiology and behavior, neonatal physiology and behavior, obstetrics, pediatrics, child development, and behavioral development will find this book useful in their own specific areas of concentration.