The Science of BabyPlus® - Prenatal Brain Cell Atrophy

"The brain of an eight-month-old human fetus is actually estimated to have two to three times more nerve cells than an adult brain does. Just before birth, there is a massive death of unnecessary brain cells, a process that continues through childhood and then levels off."

Colin Blakemore,
Professor of Physiology, Oxford University,
cited in "Making of a Mind," by Kathieen McAuliffe
Omni Magazine, October 1985, page 67.

"50 to 75 percent of neurons are lost during prenatal development, and loss continues at a reduced rate in early life."

Marian Diamond, Professor of Neuroanatomy,
University of California at Berkeley,
cited in "Mothers' enriched environment alters brains,"
Brain/Mind Bulletin, March 1987, page 1.

"During neural development the processes of cell division, migration, growth, differentiation, and death all take place. Depending on when the organism is exposed to a particular modification of its usual sensory experience, any one of these ongoing processes could be affected. It has often been suggested that one of the least complex ways to modify the developing nervous system would be through the process of cell death ...."

"It is odd that the possibility of prenatally modifying mammalian brain and behavioral development through intrauterine sensory stimulation has received so little attention .... Perhaps in the future we will be able to learn more about the relative effectiveness of the intra- versus extrauterine environments in influencing the developing nervous system in different species ...."

"But this new understanding will probably come more quickly if investigators working in sensory systems other than vision use more varied approaches in manipulating early sensory experience and in analyzing subsequent effects."

Charlotte E.Mistretta and Robert M. Bradley,
Department of Oral Biology,  School of Dentistry, University of Michigan,
"Effects of Early Sensory Experience on Brain and Behavioral Development,"
Studies on the Development of Behavior and the Nervous System,
Volume 4, Early Influences,   edited by Gilbert Gottlieb,
Academic Press,  New York, 1978, pages 233 and 240.

Fetuses' first synapses have been documented as early as the seventieth day after conception. Specialists in fetal and infant brain development stress that the fetal stimulation of a baby's senses can affect the development of these synapses. In fact, the lack of these connections can cause nerve cells to die, especially in the eighth month of pregnancy. Current studies speculate that sensory stimulation of the fetus in utero during the last half of pregnancy (which, of course, creates more synapses) may act as a preventative to brain cell death ...."

Susan Ludington-Hoe,
Professor of Maternity/Child Health, School of Nursing, University of California at Los Angeles,
How To Have a Smarter Baby, Rawson Associates,
New York, 1985, page 35.

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