Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Hurdles for brain studies in kids?

Looking at kids is probably a bit more difficult than I originally thought it would be. They are more of a moving target in terms of comparing brains between individuals. Whereas all adults have fully developed brains (and only small changes with advancing age), the younger the kids the more difference between them due to a natural fluctuation in the speed of development, even for the same age. So, comparing a 6-year old with a 10-year old is much bigger issue than comparing a 24-year old with a 28-year old or 35-year old. So really you need kids of the same age to reduce this source of error. But even then, I guess the difference between their brains might be bigger than between 24 and 28 year olds, for example.

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