Functional recovery

• What is plasticity?

  The brains ability to change and adapt as a result of experience
• Who did the taxi driver study?

  Maguire
• What did Maguire find?


  London taxi drivers have an enlarged posterior hippocampus

  A correlation was found between the amount of time spent as a taxi driver and volume of the right posterior hippocampus
• What is an issue with Maguire’s taxi study?


  Maybe people with enlarged hippocampi become taxi drivers due to their spatial navigation, not the other way around
• What did Turk et al find about plasticity?


  Patient JW (a split-brained patient) could speak information presented to either hemisphere, suggesting that his hemispheres adapted to being able to do this
• What did Danielli et al find about plasticity?


  Patient EB had his left hemisphere removed at age 2 and a half. By age 17 EB had normal functioning, so the brain can adapt
• What are the four types of functional recovery?

  • Axonal sprouting
  • Recruitment of homologous areas
  • Reformation of blood vessels
  • Neuronal unmasking
• What is axonal sprouting?


  New nerves grow and connect to undamaged nerves to form new pathways
• What is reformation of blood vessels?

  Blood vessels are repaired
• What is recruitment of homologous areas?


  The opposite hemisphere in the same area is recruited to perform the same function
• What is neuronal unmasking?


  Dormant neural pathways are activated to enable functioning to continue
• What did Schnieder find about functional recovery?


  If someone went to university they were 7x more likely to recover. This is because they have more ‘cognitive reserves’ (spare brain capacity)
• What did Huttenlocher find about functional recovery?


  It decreases with age