plasticity and functional recovery

• Brain Plasticity

  The brain's ability to change and adapt because of experience
• Functional Recovery

  The transfer of functions from a damaged area of the brain after trauma to other undamaged areas
• Maguire et al. (2000)


  • Examined structural changes in the brains of people with extensive experience of spatial navigation
  • Found increased grey matter in the brains of taxi drivers compared to controls in the posterior hippocampus
  • Found a positive correlation between time spent as a taxi driver and volume in the right posterior hippocampus

  
• Localisation of function in the brain and hemispheric lateralisation: motor, somatosensory, visual, auditory and language centres; Broca's and Wernicke's areas, split brain research. Plasticity and functional recovery of the brain after trauma.

  
• Key Terms


  • Localisation of Function
  • Motor
  • Hemispheric Lateralisation
  • Somatosensory
  • Plasticity
  • Visual
  • Functional Recovery
  • Auditory
  • Broca's Area
  • Wernicke's Area
  • Split Brain Research

  
• Brain Plasticity


  The brain's ability to change and adapt because of experience. Experience includes everything outside the body (e.g. driving a car, playing a musical instrument, etc.), and the functions and processes of the brain can change as a result of these experiences.
• Functional Recovery


  The transfer of functions from a damaged area of the brain after trauma to other undamaged areas. It can do this through a process termed neuronal unmasking where 'dormant' synapses (which have not received enough input to be active) open connections to compensate for a nearby damaged area of the brain.
• Maguire et al. (2000)

  • Aimed to examine whether structural changes could be detected in the brains of people with extensive experience of spatial navigation
  • Used structural MRI scans of 16 right-handed male London taxi drivers who had been driving for more than 1.5 years, and 50 healthy right-handed males who did not drive taxis for comparison
  • Found increased grey matter in the brains of taxi drivers compared with controls in the right and left hippocampi, specifically in the posterior (rear) hippocampus
  • Found a correlation between the amount of time spent as a taxi driver and volume in the right posterior hippocampus