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Huge advances have been made in the cognitive neurosciences in the last decade, enabling us to understand how complex cognitive and emotional behavior patterns occur in the brain. Understanding these processes and the related processing circuits has thus become indispensable in clinical practice too. We know that areas of the brain interfacing with one another and forming networks widely distributed throughout the brain become specialized early on in developmental age, but are sensitive to biological or environmental insults that can alter their organization and proper global functioning, even if the lesion only affects a single node in the network.

This course aims to provide further knowledge of the neural networks that process complex functions and behavior patterns in developmental age. It departs from the point of arrival of the course held in 2008, which concerned the basal nuclei, the connection systems, the cerebellum and the mirror neurons. This time it will focus on the frontal lobes, the limbic system (the hippocampus and amygdala), and the visuo-cognitive system.

Each session will begin with a talk on the normal structure and connections of the systems being discussed and the corresponding functions that are processed, followed by lectures on their normal development and on their malfunctioning in the event of various pathological conditions.

In the first session on the frontal lobes, the tasks of the parieto-frontal system of the mirror neurons will be explained, then diseases such as epilepsy, frontal trauma, learning difficulties, and the whole range of neuropsychiatric disorders will be discussed.

The second day will be dedicated to the limbic system, with clinical lectures on the hippocampus in particular, which will focus on memory and language difficulties and associated behavioral disorders, including problems of attachment, while those of the amygdala will be dedicated to autism and the effects of relational deprivation.

The third session on the visuo-cognitive system will concentrate on disorders of prematurity and neurodevelopmental conditions.

The course is intended mainly for pediatric neuropsychiatrists, psychologists and neuro-rehabilitation specialists.