Through the Abecedarian Project, an early education, randomized controlled trial that has followed children since 1971, researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania have discovered an enhanced learning environment during the first five years of life shapes the brain in ways that are apparent four decades later. Authors of the study include professors Sharon Landesman Ramey, Craig Ramey, and Read Montague of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute of Virginia Tech, and Martha Farah, director of the Center for Neuroscience & Society at Penn. The study appears in the June edition of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.