HUMAN BRAIN DEVELOPMENT: NATURE AND NURTURE

With Helen Neville, Ph.D.

2007 (27 minutes) $250.   ISBN: 1-891340-49-2       [Available with Spanish Subtitles]

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The interplay between inborn potentials and experience is a richly complex one and understanding it can potentially help us all in leading fuller lives.  Dr. Helen Neville has long studied the effects of experience on various functions of the brain, especially those of language and attention.  In this film, she proposes that there are some that are some systems that are very modifiable through experience, others that are also highly modifiable but only during certain sensitive periods and still others that change very little from our earliest days. Using aspects language and visual perception as examples, students learn about neuroplasticity and experience the research that probes its complexity in this fascinating film. 

Film content:

            The maturation of the brain.

            Neuroplasticity

                        Its three profiles

                        Pruning

                        Sensitive periods

            Lab based research using MRI’s and electromagnetic techniques

                        Difference and similarities in visual perception between the congenitally deaf and hearing subjects

                        Differences in aspects of language processing between native and non-native speakers

                        Difference in brain organization between native speakers with high language skills and those with low                     

            Intervention study with preschool children

            The possibility of modifying attention skills

Visuals:

            Stunning 3-D brain models to illustrate location of several systems of the brain.

            MRI images.

            Graphic representations of Event Related Potentials.

            Images of the actual stimuli researchers use to study brain functions.

            Research subjects in natural and laboratory situations.

            Preschool children and their parents participating in specialized activities

            Longitudinal film sequences of one person from infancy through young adulthood

Consultant: 

Helen J. Neville, Ph.D. is a professor of neuroscience and psychology.  She is the director of the Brain Development Laboratory at the University of Oregon, Eugene where this film was shot. Canadian by birth, she completed her Ph.D. studies at Cornell.  She worked several years at the Salk Institute in San Diego before establishing this lab.  She is well published and in April 2007 was elected to membership in the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.   

A recent academic review of this film:

This title, part of the Neuroscience Series from Davidson Films, provides a basic foundation of the nature v. nurture concept as it relates to human brain development. Narrator and researcher, Dr. Helen Neville, guides the viewer through several examples of what happens when the brain is developing basic systems such as vision and language. In addition, it illustrates how neuroscience research experiments are conducted.

There is quite a bit of information packed into this 27 minute film. The concept of plasticity is the overarching theme, with introductions to constrained systems (not changing much over the lifespan), modifiable and dependent systems (change based on experience but only at certain times), and highly modifiable (changeable during all parts of the lifespan). These concepts are illustrated through examples like vision development, language and grammar development, and experiments conducted at the Psychology Department Brain Research Lab at the University of Oregon.

Professionally created, this film is a fine complement to the impressive catalog of Davidson Films. It is a welcome addition to the educational psychology and neuropsychology areas, where there are not very many well done introductory programs available. The one problem that stops this reviewer from assigning a higher rating is a lack of balance between the very introductory and the more complicated concepts, creating a challenge for assigning a proper audience level. Nonetheless, it is recommended for senior high through early college library collections.

-- Lori Widzinski, Health Sciences Library, University at Buffalo, State University of New York

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