Why do children and adults learn differently?

Sympo­sium 2024

Hamburg — On July 11, 2024, the 9th sympo­sium of the Hector Fellow Academy 2024 "Why Do Children and Adults Learn Differ­ently?" took place at the Univer­sität Hamburg and via livestream. The event focused on excit­ing questions: Does it make sense for children to learn Chinese in daycare centers? What role do children's brain activ­i­ties play in their later devel­op­ment? How impor­tant are early child­hood experi­ences? And what influ­ence do our grand­par­ents' experi­ences have on us and our learning?

Numer­ous inter­ested guests on site and in the livestream had the oppor­tu­nity to immerse themselves in the fasci­nat­ing world of the human brain and learn about current research approaches. The record­ing of the event is now avail­able on the Hector Fellow Academy YouTube channel in German and English.

Dr. Sebas­t­ian Frank, Hector RCD awardee and first speaker of the evening, presented neuronal mecha­nisms under­ly­ing learn­ing in children. He and his research team are inves­ti­gat­ing, for example, whether train­ing can be helpful in learn­ing and lead to a lasting improve­ment in the perfor­mance of visual tasks.

Prof. Dr. Ileana Hanganu-Opatz from the Univer­sity Medical Center Hamburg Eppen­dorf focused on the early activ­i­ties in our brain and how these influ­ence our cogni­tive abili­ties and impair­ments in adulthood.

Scien­tific host of the event and Hector Fellow Prof. Dr. Brigitte Röder from the Insti­tute of Psychol­ogy at the Univer­sity of Hamburg spoke about the impor­tance of early child­hood experi­ences. To this end, she and her research group examine the brain activ­ity and struc­ture of people who are born blind and regained later in life their sight through an opera­tion. From these studies, conclu­sions can be drawn about the signif­i­cance of children's experi­ences on brain development.

Finally, Hector Fellow emeri­tus Prof. Dr. Thomas Elbert from the Univer­sity of Konstanz spoke about how traumatic experi­ences can change the epige­netic code and patterns of gene expres­sion in children and across generations.

The evening was hosted by Andrea Grieß­mann, well-known TV presen­ter for programs such as Planet Wissen and book author.

The next Hector Fellow Academy Science Evening will take place on July 10, 2025 in Düssel­dorf and via livestream. Under the topic "Brain, computer and AI — soon indis­tin­guish­able?", top-class speak­ers will once again provide fasci­nat­ing insights into research. The scien­tific organizer is Katrin Amunts, Profes­sor of Brain Research and Direc­tor of the C. and O. Vogt Insti­tute for Brain Research at Heinrich Heine Univer­sity Düssel­dorf and Direc­tor of the Insti­tute of Neuro­science and Medicine at Forschungszen­trum Jülich.