Synaptic Pruning - Early Brain Development | Neuroscience 101

Toddlers have an amazing ability to learn. This is made possible by the rapid growth of brain connections followed by synaptic pruning. But what is synaptic pruning?
Young children can learn new languages, motor abilities and complex thinking almost without effort. When a baby is born, it has the same amount of neurons as an adult. However, those neurons are not all connected yet. In the first two to three years of a childrens life a massive amount of connections between neurons (brain cells) are made. This process is called synaptogenesis. Actually, the brain forms many more connections than it actually needs. This is why during brian development synapses (brain connections) that are important will remain, and become stronger. This is made possible by neural and synaptic plasticity. However, connections that are not useful disappear again.
This explains why a toddler has more connections in the brain than an adult. It is because they have a lot of unused connections.
Time stamps:
0:00 Children learn easily
1:24 Synaptogenesis
2:52 Synaptic pruning
4:12 Brain development and neural plasticity
7:00 An example of synaptic pruning
8:02 Why first synaptogenesis followed by synaptic pruning?
9:03 Ending
References
Keunen, K., Counsell, S. J., & Benders, M. (2017). The emergence of functional architecture during early brain development. NeuroImage, 160, 2-14. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage....
Knickmeyer, R. C., Gouttard, S., Kang, C., Evans, D., Wilber, K., Smith, J. K., Hamer, R. M., Lin, W., Gerig, G., & Gilmore, J. H. (2008). A structural MRI study of human brain development from birth to 2 years. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 28(47), 12176-12182. doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.347...
Paolicelli, R. C., Bolasco, G., Pagani, F., Maggi, L., Scianni, M., Panzanelli, P., Giustetto, M., Ferreira, T. A., Guiducci, E., Dumas, L., Ragozzino, D., & Gross, C. T. (2011). Synaptic pruning by microglia is necessary for normal brain development. Science (New York, N.Y.), 333(6048), 1456-1458. doi.org/10.1126/science.1202529
Robichaux, M. A., & Cowan, C. W. (2014). Signaling mechanisms of axon guidance and early synaptogenesis. Current topics in behavioral neurosciences, 16, 19-48. doi.org/10.1007/7854_2013_255
Sakai J. (2020). Core Concept: How synaptic pruning shapes neural wiring during development and, possibly, in disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 117(28), 16096-16099. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010281117
Narrated by: Miles Wischnewski
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[@56jasa]

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[@real.psyched]

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[@samanthasemi8398]

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[@martijn2246]

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[@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu]

a video about children that doesn't talk about epileptogenesis? shame.