plasticity and recovery after trauma

• What is brain plasticity?

  • refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt its structure and function as a result of experience and new learning
  • e.g. new synaptic connections are formed and others are pruned
• the brain has the ability to change throughout life especially infancy when the brain undergoes rapid growth and increases the number of synaptic connections
• why is brain plasticity reduced when we get older?

  • connections are rarely used and deleted
• brain connections that are frequently used are strengthened
• Maguire et al research

  • illustrated plain plasticity in adults
  • used MRI scanning and found that London taxi drivers had larger posterior hippocampi than control group
  • there was a positive correlation between structural differences and how long they have been doing their job
  • the hippocampus is associated with the skill of spacial navigation suggested the brains shape was changed according to skills a person developed
• Kuhn research

  • compared a control group with a video game training group (trained for 30 minutes per day for 2 months on Super Mario)
  • found an increase in grey matter in brain areas including cortex and hippocampus
  • this increase was not found in the control group
• Functional recovery is a form of plasticity following damage or trauma
• following physical injury or trauma, healthy and unaffected areas of the brain are often able to adapt and compensate for damaged areas
• • neural plasticity can occur as the brain is able to form new synaptic connections close to the area of damage
  • takes over functions of damaged areas
• How can functional recovery occur?

  1. neural pathways that are not typically used are unmasked or activated to take over functioning that has been lost by damage
  2. undamaged neurones make synaptic connections in areas of the brain that were damaged, forming new neuronal pathways
  3. recruitment of similar areas on the opposite side of the brain
  4. neurogenesis - growth of new neurones
• What is axonal sprouting

  undamaged neurones make synaptic connections in areas of the brain that were damaged, forming new neuronal pathways