Brain plasticity and functional recovery

• Brain Plasticity

  The brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning.

  Originally thought that changed only happened in childhood but research shows the brain continues to adapt as a result of new learning
• Functional Recovery

  Moving functions from a damaged area to the brain to another undamaged area after trauma.

  Another example of neural plasticity
• Maguire et al (2002)


  Studied the hippocampus of London taxi drivers to see if it would change because of the driver's high dependence on navigational skills.

  
  

  Found more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus compared to matched control group.

  Also found that the longer participants had been taxi driver's, the greater the grey matter - positive correlation.
• Support for Plasticity: Application

  Neurorehabilitation is where movement therapy and electrical stimulation of the brain are used to counter deficits in motor and/or cognitive functions (that may be experienced following a stroke, for instance).

  This shows that there are interventions which may help the brain to repair itself following an illness.
• Weakness of Plasticity: Negative Plasticity

  The brain's ability to rewire itself can sometimes have maladaptive behavioral consequences

  60%-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome

  Thought to be due to cortical reorganisation int he somatosensory cortex after limb loss.
• Weakness of Plasticity: Age

  Plasticity tends to reduce with age.

  The brain has a greater propensity for reogranisation in childhood as it is constantly adapting to new experiences and learning.
• Rehabilitative Therapy


  Neuroscientists suggest that functional recovery can occur quickly after trauma (spontaneous recovery) then slow down after several weeks or months.

  At this point, the patient may require...
• New Synaptic Connections


  During functional recover, the brain is able to rewire and reorganise itself through forming...
• Axonal Sprouting


  The growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form new neural pathways
• Reformation of Blood Vessels


  A structural change in the brain to support the creation of secondary neural pathways which are unmasked to enable functioning to continue.
• Recruitment of Homologous Areas


  Using similar areas on the opposite side to support a lost function

  E.g. If the Broca's area is damaged, the equivalent right side would carry out its functions.
• Weakness of Functional Recovery: Age

  The capacity for neural reorganisation is much greater in childhood than in adults.

  This means that the only option following trauma beyond child-hood is to developcompensatory behavioral strategiesto work around the deficit

  E.g. social support or developing strategies to deal with cognitive deficits.
• Support for Functional Recovery: Educational Attainment

  Schneider et al (2014) - patients with the equivalent of a college education are 7x more likely than those who didn't finish high school to be disability-free one year after a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury.

  Concluded thatcognitive reservecould be a factor in neural adaption during recovery from injury.