Five times the wiring in days: how a baby brain tunes itself the moment the eyes open

A newborn's eyes open, and the brain gets to work at astonishing speed. In a study published in Current Biology, researchers in David Fitzpatrick's lab at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience watched what happens in the visual brain in the first days of seeing: neurons gained nearly five times as many excitatory connections — the wiring that carries signals — almost immediately after visual experience began. Lead author Juliane Jaepel and colleagues found those new connections are what sharpen each neuron's response to what the eyes take in. It is a window onto one of development's most elegant tricks: the brain does not wait to be finished before it starts learning — seeing itself does the building.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation