XPost: alt.psychology, alt.psychology.psychoanalysis, sci.psychology.theory   
   From: mlwi@swipnet.se   
      
   "Compared With Chimps, Humans Slow to Insulate Nerve Fibers" (Science   
   Magazine)   
      
   A human newborn's brain is uniquely impressionable, allowing social   
   interactions and the environment to shape its development. But this   
   malleability may come with a price, a new study finds. A comparison of   
   juvenile chimpanzee and human brains suggests that differences in the   
   development of myelin-the fatty sheath that surrounds nerve fibers-may   
   contribute not only to our unusual adaptability, but also to our   
   vulnerability to psychiatric diseases that start in early   
   adulthood.[...]   
      
   "...human brain development is more protracted than in other animals."   
   That may allow more opportunity for the environment, rather than genes   
   alone, to direct the brain's development, he says.   
      
   Opportunity could also be a source of risk. Many of the changes that   
   occur in the human brain during adolescence-including disorders such as   
   depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia-may be associated with   
   delayed myelination, Sherwood speculates. At the very least, he says,   
   slow myelination in humans and the timing of the onset of these   
   disorders is "an interesting coincidence."   
      
   http://tinyurl.com/c5mdd22   
      
   http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/09/compared-with-chim   
   s-humans-slow.html   
      
   Mats Winther   
   http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)