NIH Radio
Infants Capable of Learning While Asleep – 6
Narrator: This is NIH Health Matters. I’m Joe Balintfy. Researchers have recently shown that babies use a part of the brain called the cerebellum to do a simple form of learning while they’re asleep. Dr. William Fifer at Columbia University in New York says this discovery may provide a tool to quantify how well the brain is developing right after birth.
Fifer: We know that other childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, as in autism and attention deficit disorders, also have cerebellar abnormalities, so perhaps this kind of a probe could be used to assess vulnerability for those conditions.
Narrator: Dr. Fifer hopes this research may also help indentify babies at risk for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS. For details visit nichd.nih.gov. Health Matters is produced by the National Institutes of Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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