Your Brain on Big Bird: Sesame Street Helps to Reveal Patterns of Neural Development

Using brain scans of children and adults watching Sesame Street, cognitive scientists are learning how children’s brains change as they develop intellectual abilities like reading and math.

The novel use of brain imaging during everyday activities like watching TV, say the scientists, opens the door to studying other thought processes in naturalistic settings and may one day help to diagnose and treat learning disabilities.

Scientists are just beginning to use brain imaging to understand how humans process thought during real-life experiences. For example, researchers have compared scans of adults watching an entertaining movie to see if neural responses are similar across different individuals. “But this is the first study to use the method as a tool for understanding development,” says lead author Jessica Cantlon, an assistant professor in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.

Eventually, that understanding may help pinpoint the cause when a child experiences difficulties mastering school work. “Psychologists have behavioral tests for trying to get the bottom of learning impairments, but these new imaging studies provide a totally independent source of information about children’s learning based on what’s happening in the brain,” says Cantlon.

The neuroimaging findings are detailed in a new study published Jan. 3 by the Public Library of Science’s open-access journal PLoS Biology, by Cantlon and her former research assistant Rosa Li, now a graduate student at Duke University.