Biopsychology Because of cataracts your neighbor was deprive

Biopsychology

Because of cataracts, your neighbor was deprived of visual experiences during childhood. Lasr year, now an adult, her vision was restored by surgery, but she is having difficulty dealing with the visual world. This probably because:

A. brain cells normally devoted to vision died off or were diverted to other uses

B. normal pruning of the visual brain cells occurred

C. brain development ends in childhood

D. visual deprivation has no effect on brain development

Solution

The development of brain is subject to various epigenetic and environmental conditions. During childhood, a process called as synaptic pruning occurs. Beginning in the earliest embryonic stage and lasting until approximately 2 years of age, new neurons and synapses are formed at an amazing rate, at times reaching 40,000 new synapses formed per second. Therefore, in early childhood, the individual is left with more synapses that would be normally required. Synaptic pruning is the process by which these extra synapses are eliminated thereby increasing the efficiency of the neural network.

Since the individual in question was deprived of visual experiences during childhood, it is possible that she may have had neuronal synapses for vision; but the extended period of blindness caused pruning of the synapses required for the same. Once surgery had been performed, the difficulty occured due to the absence of visual synapse, and perhaps the formation of new ones.

Therefore, the correct option is Option B.