Infants use prefrontal cortex in learning

Researchers have long thought that the region of the brain involved in some of the highest forms of cognition and reasoning -- the prefrontal cortex (PFC) -- was too underdeveloped in young children, especially infants, to participate in complex cognitive tasks. A new study suggests otherwise. Given the task of learning simple hierarchical rules, babies appeared to employ much the same circuits as adults doing a similar task.