Editing Neuroscientist (section)

=== Behavioral and developmental studies ===
Neuroscientists have been working to show how the brain is far more elastic and able to change than we once thought. They have been using work that psychologists previously reported to show how the observations work, and give a model for it.
[[File:L-Phenylalanine_wpmp.png|thumb|L-phenylalanine]]
One recent behavioral study is that of [[Phenylketonuria|phenylketonuria (PKU)]], a disorder that heavily damages the brain due to toxic levels of the [[amino acid]] [[phenylalanine]]. Before neuroscientists had studied this disorder, psychologists did not have a mechanistic understanding as to how this disorder caused high levels of the [[amino acid]] and thus treatment was not well understood, and oftentimes, was inadequate. The neuroscientists that studied this disorder used the previous observations of psychologists to propose a mechanistic model that gave a better understanding of the disorder at the molecular level. This in turn led to better understanding of the disorder as a whole and greatly changed treatment that led to better lives for patients with the disorder.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Diamond|first=Adele|last2=Amso|first2=Dima|date=2008-04-01|title=Contributions of Neuroscience to Our Understanding of Cognitive Development|journal=Current Directions in Psychological Science|volume=17|issue=2|pages=136–141|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00563.x|issn=0963-7214|pmc=2366939|pmid=18458793}}</ref>

Another recent study was that of [[mirror neuron]]s, neurons that fire when mimicking or observing another animal or person that is making some sort of expression, movement, or gesture. This study was again one where neuroscientists used the observations of psychologists to create a model for how the observation worked. The initial observation was that newborn infants mimicked facial expressions that were expressed to them. Scientists were not certain that newborn infants were developed enough to have complex neurons that allowed them to mimic different people and there was something else that allowed them to mimic expressions. Neuroscientists then provided a model for what was occurring and concluded that infants did in fact have these neurons that fired when watching and mimicking facial expressions.<ref name=":1" />