• Scientists are continually refining imaging techniques to provide more detailed information on brain development, even in very young children. Researchers are tracing how changes in the developing brain underlie milestones in a child’s mental and physical abilities, and behavior.
• Scientists are conducting studies to determine what individual genes do in the brain and how changes in genes disrupt brain function.
• Research on early childhood stress is showing how early trauma can alter the brain’s stress response system and contribute to future risk of anxiety and mood disorders.
• Scientists are also studying how genes that convey vulnerability to stress may increase risk.
• Studies of how the environment can turn genes on and off—a field called epigenetics—are providing clues to how early experience can have lasting effects on behavior, even across generations. Epigenetic changes are likely to be involved in the effects of the environment on development of the nervous system. Knowledge of epigenetic processes may offer targets for the development of new medications.
