A01

• Brain plasticity is the ability to form neural connections in response to new demands on the brain. Maguire investigated brain plasticity in London taxi drivers. A test called ‘The Knowledge’ which assesses memory of all city streets and possible routes must be passed by black taxi drivers. Compared to a control group, taxi drivers had a higher volume of grey matter in the hippocampus (associated with spatial and navigational skills). They also found a positive correlation between length of experience and the grey matter volume.
• Functional recovery, which is the brain’s ability, following physical injury, to adapt & compensate for those damaged areas.The brain is able to rewire and reorganise by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage, through a number of structural changes; Axonal sprouting happens where new neural pathways are formed by growing new nerve endings and connecting to the damaged nerve cells.
• Denervation supersensitivity is when axons that perform similar roles work harder to compensate for the ones that are lost. Finally, recruitment of homologous areas is when areas on the opposite side of the brain carry out the functions.