Plasticity and Functional Recovery

• What does plasticity ? 

  Its the brains tendency to adapt and change both physically and functionally as a result of new experiences and learning 
• What was kuhn et al 2014 reasearch ?

  • control vs video game training group 
  • 30 mins/day 
  • Significant increase in grey matter 
  • Areas involved in spacial navigation,strategic planning,motor performance 
• What did Bezzola et al (2012) find out ?

  -provided 40 hours of golf training to 40-60 year olds. Using fMRI the researchers observed reduced motor cortex activity in the novice golfers compared to a control group,suggesting more efficient neural representations after training.

  -reduced brain activity suggests that the experience of playing golf had changed the structure of the brain 

  -repeated golf practice had refined the practice in the brain 
• What’s functional recovery?

  Where the brain recovers abilities previously lost due to brain injury.Brain functions move from a damaged area to an undamaged area
• What’s a lesion ?

  An area of the brain which has suffered damage through injury or disease.If someone has a lesion in the brain this will lead to a loss of function 
• What’s axonal sprouting ?

  When undamaged axons sprout,or grow new nerve endings , to replace the old ones in order to reconnect to other neurons 
• What’s neuronal unmasking ?

  When damage occurs dormant synapses become activated to take on the function that was lost because of the brain damage 
• What’s recruitment of homologous areas ?

  Where similar areas sometimes in the other hemisphere are used when an area of the brain is damaged 
• What’s a case study for the recruitment of homologous areas ?

  Jodie miller 
• What happened to Jodie miller ?

  Jodie suffered from intense epileptic seizures when she was three years old. She lost control of the left side of her body and had the right side of her brain removed to treat the seizures.
• What are the three things that happen during fictional recovery ?

  • Axonal sprouting

  • Neuronal unmasking

  • Recruitment of homologous areas
• What were Maguire et al different conditions ?

  • experimental condition which was 16 right handed male London taxi drivers with average (14 hrs experience)
  • Control condition - 50 right handed male non - taxi drivers 
• What did Maguire et al find out ?

  The more time being a London taxi driver the larger the posterior hippocampus