{"id":219826,"date":"2025-08-10T20:03:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T01:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/more-than-a-simple-relay-station-thalamus-may-guide-timing-of-brain-development-and-plasticity"},"modified":"2025-08-10T20:03:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T01:03:24","slug":"more-than-a-simple-relay-station-thalamus-may-guide-timing-of-brain-development-and-plasticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/more-than-a-simple-relay-station-thalamus-may-guide-timing-of-brain-development-and-plasticity","title":{"rendered":"More than a simple relay station: Thalamus may guide timing of brain development and plasticity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/more-than-a-simple-relay-station-thalamus-may-guide-timing-of-brain-development-and-plasticity2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The brain is known to develop gradually throughout the human lifespan, following a hierarchical pattern. First, it adapts to support basic functions, such as movement and sensory perception, then it moves onto more advanced human abilities, such as decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutes, led by Principal Investigator Dr. Theodore Satterthwaite, recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding how the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/thalamus\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">thalamus<\/a>, a structure deep within the brain known to be involved in the processing and routing of sensory information, could contribute to the brain\u2019s development over time.<\/p>\n<p>Their findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41593-025-01991-6\" target=\"_blank\">published in <i>Nature Neuroscience<\/i><\/a>, suggest that the thalamus is more than a relay station for sensory and motor signals, and also plays a role in regulating the hierarchical pattern and timeline of brain development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The brain is known to develop gradually throughout the human lifespan, following a hierarchical pattern. First, it adapts to support basic functions, such as movement and sensory perception, then it moves onto more advanced human abilities, such as decision-making. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and other institutes, led by Principal Investigator Dr. Theodore Satterthwaite, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}