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Brain Construction Schedule Explorer

Run the Brain Construction Schedule Explorer Fullscreen

Place the following line in your website to include this MicroSim in your course:

<iframe src="https://arunbatchu.github.io/adhd/sims/brain-construction-explorer/main.html" height="482px" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Description

The brain is a construction project that runs into the mid-twenties, in a strict back-to-front order — and the self-management (prefrontal) region is installed last. This explorer makes the schedule visible: drag the age slider (or press Play) and watch five regions fill with color as they mature. Click any region to learn what it handles and when it typically comes online.

Below the head, a life demands track lights up kindergarten, homework, driving, and college as the slider passes them — demands that arrive on a fixed schedule regardless of the panel's wiring. Turn on the ADHD trajectory toggle and only the prefrontal region shifts two-to-three years later, making Chapter 2's house-built-while-you-live-in-it example explorable. Fills are illustrative of the maturation ordering, not clinical measurements.

Lesson Plan

  1. Play (2 min): Run the animation from 0 to 30 once. Ask: which region finished first, which last?
  2. Probe (3 min): Click each region at age 8. Note that emotion runs near full strength while self-management is half-built — discuss what that predicts about tantrums.
  3. Compare (4 min): Set age to 16 (driver's license). Read the prefrontal percentage with the ADHD toggle off, then on. Discuss the caption under the demands track.
  4. Connect (2 min): Relate to the maturation-lag section of Chapter 2 and the "expecting hardware that isn't installed yet" idea.

References