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Advances in the neurocognitive sciences of developmental age have extensively confirmed that the areas of a child’s brain become specialized in processing specific functions already at a very early age. This evidence has also led to the demonstration that, before these areas reach their final internal architecture and location, they may be redundant and be represented in a different hemisphere or in a different area from their final location.

It is now clear, moreover, that the higher psychic functions are processed, in their various components and in their global complexity, by specific areas that are interconnected in complex networks and distributed throughout the brain, which means that a lesion in a given area interferes with the functioning and coherence of the system as a whole.

This course deals with certain areas of the brain whose functions become specialized already in developmental age, since  clear evidence has been achieved in recent years.

After an introductory lecture on the functions and their processing in specific areas and distributed networks, the various sessions will be organized in the form of a presentation of the organization and functions of a given area in normal conditions, followed by presentations on impairments affecting the area concerned in the case of diseases and disorders.

The first session focuses on the basal ganglia, which are now unanimously acknowledged as being involved not only in motor control, but also in the processing of emotions and cognitive abilities. One contribution will concentrate on the aphasias deriving from basal ganglia lesions and another presentation will discuss the related neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, OCD and ADHD.

One session is dedicated to the functioning and organization of the white matter, both in normal conditions and in disease. We shall discuss the neuropsychological impairments of intelligence and language, and of complex visual-perceptive abilities, in periventricular leukomalacia of term and pre-term newborn, and in multiple sclerosis of developmental age. Then we shall go on to the role of the corpus callosum in mental functioning in the event of congenital and acquired diseases of the white matter.

The session concerned with the cerebellum begins with a lecture on its structure and functions, followed by a presentation on the related pathological conditions.  It was established fairly recently that the role of the cerebellum is not confined to the processing and learning of actions and motor sequences, however complex they may be; it also participates in other psychic functions and in complex social behavior, through segregated connections with specific supratentorial areas. We shall also consider the role of the cerebellum in neuropsychological and emotional functioning, and in language, in the case of neoplastic and malformative diseases, in autism, in dyslexia, and in motor coordination disorders.

The last session well be spent on the area of the mirror neurons, a particular class of neurons that fire both when individuals perform an action, and when they observe such an action being performed by another individual. These mirror neurons play a fundamental part in understanding the purpose of other people’s actions, and in imitation, but also - in a more complex developmental setting - in understanding other people’s intentions and developing empathetic relationships.  Then we shall go on to consider how this system is involved in the normal development of gestural and other forms of language. We shall see how, in pathological conditions, mirror neuron impairments can be responsible for the onset of autistic disorder, one of the main symptoms of which is specifically represented by the patients’ inability to understand their own and other people's intentions, making it impossible for them to develop empathetic relationships.

The session will end with the presentation of a case of a girl with bilateral perisylvian syndrome (a malformation affecting the area of the mirror neurons), who underwent a rehabilitation process using the gestural mimicry method, which also led to a marked improvement in her verbal language. Finally, we shall explain how the role of the mirror neurons can be exploited in innovative rehabilitation methods to deal with neuromotor disorders of developmental age.