Plasticity

• What is plasticity?

  Brains ability to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning
• During infancy, what does the brain experience?

  Rapid growth in synaptic connections
• What is synaptic pruning?

  As we age, rarely used connections are deleted and frequently used ones are strengthened
• What did maguire et al do?

  Studied brains of London taxi drivers and found more volume of grey matter in the hippocampus than in a control group
• What does the hippocampus do?

  Development of spatial and navigational skills
• Explain the findings in maguires et al study

  Drivers take a test which assesses their recall of city streets and possible routes. This learning experience alters the structure of their brains.

  The longer they had been in the job, the more pronounced was the structural difference

  
  
• Describe draganski et al?

  Imaged the brains of medical students 3 months before and after final exams.

  Learning-induced changes were seen to have occurred in hippocampus and parietal cortex