Understanding the role of neural activity in the development of the
brain has been a major concern of many modern neurobiologists. The
reason is plain enough: since the world influences the brain by means of
action potentials and synaptic potentials, activity must be the chief
cause of the neural changes wrought by experience. This 1994 volume
explores the hypothesis that neural activity generated by experience
modulates the ongoing growth of the brain during maturation, thus
sculpting in each of us a unique nervous system according to the events
of our early life. Brain growth is considered at a macroscopic level by
examining brain maps and their modular substructure, and at a cellular
level by investigating the neuronal interactions that influence the
formation and maintenance of these structures. The ways that experience
influences the maturation of the brain at both macroscopic and
microscopic levels are described, and the conventional wisdom is
re-examined.