functional recovery

• Following physical injury or other forms of trauma, such as stroke, unaffected areas of the brain are often able to adapt and compensate for damaged areas
• Healthy brain areas may take over the functions of those areas that are damaged, destroyed or even missing. This process can occur quickly after trauma, known as spontaneous recovery and then slow down after several weeks or months.
• The brain can rewire and reorganise itself by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage
• Doidge (2007) 'Secondary neural pathways that would not be typically used to carry out certain functions are activated to enable functioning to continue'. This process is supported by several structural changes in the brain.
• Structural changes in the brain during functional recovery

  • axonal sprouting
  • denervation supersensitivity
  • recruitment of homologous areas on the opposite side of the brain
• Axonal sprouting

  The growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to produce new neural pathways
• Denervation supersensitivity

  • Occurs when axons that do a similar job become aroused to a higher level to compensate for the ones that are lost
  • Can have negative consequences of oversensitivity to messages such as pain
• Recruitment of homologous areas on the opposite side of the brain

  • specific tasks can be performed by the opposite part of the brain
  • e.g. if the Broca area was damaged on the left side, the right side equivalent would carry out its functions
• Danelli et al (2013) - Case study of EB

  • Italian boy aged 2 underwent surgery to remove entire left hemisphere of his brain (hemispherectomy)
  • All linguistic capacity disappeared
  • By age 5 his linguistic abilities returned / improved as the right hemisphere adapted to take over language functions
  • At 17, his language skills are nearly the same as his peers (only mild issues with complex sentences)
• Factors affecting functional recovery

  • Age: Children have the best ability to recover, then young adults
  • Gender: Women are more able to recover from brain damage
  • Rehabilitative Therapy: Focused effort results in improvement
• Danelli et al.'s (2013) study shows

  • how resilient the brain can be to extreme damage
  • even extreme trauma can be compensated for by the function reorganisation of other structures in the brain
  • especially if the trauma occurs early in life
• EB had his left hemisphere removed due to a tumor
• What happened to EB immediately after surgery?


  He had lost all language ability (aphasia)
• What happened to EB 2 years after recovery?

  • he had recovered his language ability
  • developed normally
  • some dyslexia like symptoms
• What did they find when EB had an MRI scan as a teenager?

  • his remaining right hemisphere functioned like a typical left hemisphere