Grant: Project Grant

Childhood is marked by constant learning. Despite their more limited knowledge bases and functionally immature brains, children acquire a vast amount of information about the world. What supports this rapid new learning, and how is the child's learning brain different from that of an adult? In the current project, we aim to answer these questions by characterizing how children differ from adults in (1) their knowledge of real-world concepts and (2) the specific brain structures and pathways that guide the creation of new concepts. We focus on the hippocampus, a brain region known to support concept learning in adults by connecting elements of experience across time and space. Emerging evidence suggests children learn differently: unable to flexibly connect multiple pieces of experience, children instead learn about inherent properties of concepts like their appearance. Here, we test the prediction that these developmental differences in concept learning arise due to maturation of the hippocampus. We combine behavioural, brain imaging, and neural network modelling methods to investigate the structural development of the hippocampus and the emergence of specific learning operations that support the formation of rich, real-world knowledge in children, adolescents, and adults. Our multifaceted approach will provide novel insight into how the brain's memory system supports learning and inform our understanding of developmental disorders (autism, schizophrenia) known to impact memory.