flynn002

Portraits of Serafino & Francesco Falzacappa; Pier Leone Ghezzi [1674 - 1755] Source: J. Paul Getty Museum Our children are being exposed to an experience that alters their brains in ways we do not fully understand. There is now strong evidence that patterns of brain connectivity are different in individuals who have been exposed compared to those who have not 1 . Influential figures have expressed concern that people’s memories will be restricted by this experience, which removes the need for them to memorise material, and allows them to look things up instead 2 . And indeed, there is clear evidence of changes in cognitive processing, as predicted 3 . Furthermore, instead of learning in a social context, our children are increasingly being encouraged to engage in solitary activities that deprive them from the benefits of interacting with other people. And, rather than embracing traditional influences, they are exposed to alien ideas from other cultures 4,5   Does this sound fa...

The arcuate fasciculus is a white matter tract linking areas in the temporal lobe involved in interpreting speech with areas in the frontal lobe that control motor movements. Its role in language was established years ago when it was proposed that conduction aphasia, characterised by poor repetition despite good understanding and fluent spontaneous speech, was a disconnection syndrome resulting from lesions of the arcuate fasciculus. Compared with apes and monkeys, humans have much stronger structural connections between temporal and frontal regions of the brain, suggesting that evolution of the arcuate fasciculus played a key role in language evolution . Study of white matter tracts in the brain has advanced rapidly since the advent of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). DTI makes it possible to measure parameters such as fractional anisotropy and radial diffusivity, indirect measures of myelination and/or axonal density within white matter. Use of DTI has revealed an intriguing aspect ...