Lifespan Development: Brain Plasticity, Prenatal Development, Motor Skills, and Sensory Faculties

A comprehensive vocabulary review set covering neuroplasticity, seven stages of prenatal brain development, gross and fine motor milestones, primitive infant reflexes, and lifespan changes in sensory faculties.

Neuroplasticity

The brain's ability to change its connections and patterns of activity throughout life in response to learning, experience, injury, or illness.

Structural Plasticity

Physical alterations to neurons and their connections, including the formation or elimination of synapses, remodeling of dendritic spines, and growth of axon branches.

Functional Plasticity

Changes in how strongly or in what pattern neural networks respond and coordinate work, such as surviving brain areas taking on or contributing more to a task after injury.

Radial Glia

Specialized cells whose elongated fibres provide a physical scaffolding that guides migrating neurons to their destination layers in the developing cerebral cortex.

Synaptogenesis

The developmental formation of new synapses through which neurons communicate, guided initially by genetic patterns and shaped later by sensory experience.

Apoptosis

Programmed cell death that serves as a normal developmental refinement process by eliminating surplus cells to help organize neural circuits.

Teratogen

An environmental exposure—such as alcohol, nicotine, specific medications, toxic chemicals, or high doses of radiation—that can disrupt prenatal development.

Synaptic Pruning

The developmental removal or refinement of selected, less-active synaptic connections to optimize neural circuits, allowing the neuron itself to remain alive.

Gross Motor Skills

Physical movements driven by large muscle groups located in the arms, legs, and torso that support posture, balance, and locomotion such as running and jumping.

Fine Motor Skills

Precise coordination of small muscle groups, especially in the hands, wrists, and fingers, used for detailed manual tasks such as grasping, cutting, and writing.

Rooting Reflex

An involuntary infant feeding reflex triggered by a touch near the cheek or mouth, causing the baby to turn their head and open their mouth toward the touch.

Moro Reflex

An automatic startle-like reflex seen in early infancy where a sudden loss of support or startling event triggers the arms to extend outward and then draw back inward.

Cephalocaudal Pattern

The directional sequence of physical growth and motor control that proceeds from head to toe, where infants gain control over the head and trunk before the lower limbs.

Proximodistal Pattern

The directional trend of physical and motor development progressing from the center of the body outward, developing trunk and arm control before fine hand and finger manipulation.

Presbycusis

Gradual, age-related hearing loss that typically affects both ears, making higher-frequency sounds and conversation in noisy environments more difficult to distinguish.