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Evidence suggests early developing human brains are preconfigured with instructions for understanding the world (www.eurekalert.org)

submitted 3 months ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.ml

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Were they expecting developing brains to have zero

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There has been a theory that the weights for the neural connections get mostly shaped by the environment, but this research shows that there's effectively firmware wiring that will emerge without any external stimulus.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There has to be given organs are controlled by the bring pre-birth, and babies can hear sounds before they are born

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's still interaction with the environment though, what this research shows is that even without any such interaction the structures form. So, they're not shaped by the environment, but are a type of firmware that's encoded within the genes.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Again, it'd be a shock if that didn't happen

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Sure, it's not a surprising finding since the environment is a stable selection pressure driving evolution. It's still nice to have these studies to confirm our intuition on the subject.