{"id":11939,"date":"2010-05-19T08:33:10","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T06:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mono-1en-2670"},"modified":"2010-05-19T08:33:10","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T06:33:10","slug":"my-fetus-is-smarter-than-an-earthworm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/2010\/05\/19\/my-fetus-is-smarter-than-an-earthworm\/","title":{"rendered":"My fetus is smarter than an earthworm"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\n\tThroughout my pregnancy I&#8217;ve been pondering the question of consciousness  \u2013 not mine, that of my fetus. Is she aware of her environment? Does she have a sense of identity? Can she think, or dream? And if she was born tomorrow, what could she know about the world around her?<\/p>\n<p>\t[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>\tBy the end of the first trimester, when most women will see their fetus for the first time through an ultrasound scan, its neural circuitry is roughly on a par with that of an earthworm or a marine snail, says David Edelman, a consciousness researcher at the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California.<\/p>\n<p>\tThe comparison is approximate: all we can say for certain is that by around 12 weeks, the fetus has peripheral circuits which enable it to perform reflex actions without any involvement from the brain.<\/p>\n<p>\tSo although I could see my baby moving around when I had my first scan, that doesn&#8217;t mean she was consciously exploring. &#8220;At that stage there&#8217;s no link between the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain,&#8221; says Glover.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/dn18923-bumpology-my-fetus-is-smarter-than-an-earthworm.html\">Link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout my pregnancy I&#8217;ve been pondering the question of consciousness \u2013 not mine, that of my fetus. Is she aware of her environment? Does she have a sense of identity? Can she think, or dream? And if she was born tomorrow, what could she know about the world around her? [&#8230;] By the end of &#8230; <a title=\"My fetus is smarter than an earthworm\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/2010\/05\/19\/my-fetus-is-smarter-than-an-earthworm\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"koromo_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-blog","koromo-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/11939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/11939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monochrom.at\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}