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Birth Prepares Brain for Sensory Information
– Reported October 17, 2013
(Ivanhoe Newswire) The actual act of birth helps prepare the brain for collecting and understanding sensory information.
According to new research out of Kanazawa University in Japan, the brains of mice showed a drastic decrease of the chemical serotonin after birth. The decrease in this chemical allowed for sensory maps to form in the brain. It is possible these findings could help the treatment of psychiatric disorders in the future, as serotonin plays a role in many these disorders. Researchers believe these could be linked to abnormal births.
“Uncovering the entire picture of the downstream signaling pathways of birth may lead to the development of new therapeutic methods to control the risk of psychiatric diseases induced by abnormal birth,” senior study author Hiroshi Kawasaki was quoted as saying.
For more information, go to: http://www.cell.com/
SOURCE: Developmental Cell, October 2013
