Plasticity

• What is plasticity?

  The brain's tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning - growth of new connections
• How does the brain appear to be 'plastic'?


  Changes throughout life
• How many synaptic connections per neuron does the brain hit at 2-3 years old according to Gopnik?


  15,000
• Who said that the brain peaks at 15,000 synaptic connections per neuron at 2-3 years old?

  Gopnik
• What happens to rarely-used synaptic connections as we age?

  Deleted
• What happens to frequently-used synaptic connections as we age?

  Strengthened
• What is the process of deleting and strengthening synaptic connections as we age called?

  Synaptic pruning
• What does synaptic pruning enable?

  Lifelong plasticity where neural connections are formed in response to new demands
• Who completed research into plasticity?

  Maguire et al.

  Draganski et al.
• What did Maguire find?

  Learning altered the structure of taxi driver's brains and the longer they'd been in the job, the more pronounced the structural difference
• Who did Maguire study?

  London taxi drivers
• Who did Draganski study?

  Medical students
• What did Draganski find?

  Posterior hippocampus and partieral cortex changed as a result of learning