Investigating hierarchical critical periods in human neurodevelopment.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review synthesizing neuroimaging and developmental literature without primary data or systematic search methodology.
PubMed 41131399 · doi:10.1038/s41386-025-02246-5
What was done
The authors reviewed and synthesized neural, environmental, and behavioral literature regarding hierarchical critical periods of neurodevelopment in humans. They evaluated neuroimaging studies characterizing in vivo correlates of plasticity and examined research assessing how lower-order sensorimotor and higher-order association cortical regions exhibit differential environmental sensitivity across development.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative metrics, effect sizes, or participant numbers. It qualitatively outlines support for a hierarchical model of human cortical critical periods during childhood and adolescence and discusses implications for understanding psychiatric vulnerability and age-specific interventions.
Why it matters
Clarifying the timing and sequence of cortical plasticity windows could help explain why environmental exposures produce distinct outcomes across developmental stages and guide the timing of enrichment interventions.
Limits
This is a narrative review and conceptual framework paper rather than an empirical study or systematic review with quantitative synthesis. The abstract provides no primary data, sample sizes, or precise temporal cutoffs, and measuring critical period biology directly in living humans remains constrained by methodological indirectness.
Cited by
- supports The human brain is hyperplastic during early developmental and youth stages.