May 27, 2010
Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences launches new initiative
On May 24, the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences launched a multi-year, multimillion-dollar initiative that will develop insights into how children learn.
The initiative, known as the Developing Mind Project, will take the discoveries from UW laboratories regarding the origins of learning and share them with academic, early learning and medical communities in order to help them design environments that will maximize learning while taking account of individual differences.
The institute also officially opened the MEG Brain Imaging Center, the first brain imaging device in the world that is optimized for neuroscientific study in infants and young children.
The institute’s co-directors, Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff, began the process of the creating the imaging center about a decade ago. The $7 million facility was financed by private donations, including from the Nick and Leslie Hanauer Foundation, as well as the UW and the Washington State Life Sciences Discovery Fund.
The imaging center is customized so that it will allow the testing of the brains of infants and young children noninvasively as they listen to people talk and act naturally with people and things in their environment. The machine can map the mental activity of an infant only a few days old, providing important data regarding how, where and when human learning happens.
“MEG is the only whole-brain imaging technology that can be used on all ages to examine learning over a lifetime,” says Kuhl, professor of speech and hearing sciences. “Over the next decade it will provide a very powerful tool for exploring the human mind and how people learn.”
One important goal of the new initiative is to craft actionable initiatives based on scientific discoveries and brain development, thereby accelerating the cycle from discovery to practice in early learning.
“The potential for the MEG center is incredible,” said Gov. Chris Gregoire. “It will help us look inside the minds of our youngest learners and better understand just what happens during those earliest years, so we can best support kids in growing up ready to learn and succeed.” Studies at the institute will be used to help the state invest wisely in early learning.
“Behavioral science discoveries have shown that early learning experiences set the foundation for success in school and in life,” said Meltzoff, professor of psychology. “The Developing Mind Project will allow us to combine the science and practice of learning to ensure that all children achieve their full potential.”
The UW established the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences in 2003 to conduct innovative interdisciplinary research on lifelong learning and the brain.
