PLASTICITY / FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY

• PLASTICITY 


  refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt because of an experience.
• PLASTICITY 


  Research has demonstrated that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in response to new experiences.
• PLASTICITY - MAGUIRE ET AL

  • 16 MALE LONDON TAXI DRIVERS BRAINS
  • MRI SCANS

  compared with a control group. All had been working for at least 18 months. FOUND = average size of the right posterior hippocampus was significantly larger in the taxi driver group compared to the control group. + increased size was relative to the amount of time the taxi driver had been working i.e. the longer they’d been working, the larger their right posterior hippocampus. = because the brains of the taxi drivers had physically changed, it suggests that the hippocampus is responsible for storing spatial memories.
• FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY 


  This is the transfer of functions from a damaged area of the brain after trauma to undamaged areas.
• FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY 


  NEURAL UNMASKING =

   where dormant synapses open up connections to compensate for a nearby damaged area of the brain. This allows new connections in the brain to be activated, thus recovering any damage occurring in other specific regions.
• FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY 


  56 Stem cells is also used to recover brain functions. These are unspecialised cells that can take on the characteristics of nerve cells allowing the brain to create new neural pathways and recover any damage to existing cells.
• (+) PLASTICITY 


  KUHN ET AL =

   found a significant increase in grey matter in various regions of the brain after participants played video games for 30 minutes a day over a two-month period.
• (+) PLASTICITY 


  DAVIDSON ET AL =

  demonstrated the permanent change in the brain generated by prolonged meditation: Buddhist monks who meditated frequently had a much greater activation of gamma waves (which coordinate neural activity) than did students with no experience of meditation. These two studies highlight the idea of plasticity and the brain’s ability to adapt as a result of new experience, whether it’s video games or mediation.
• (+) NOTION OF BRAIN PLASTICITY

  MAGUIRE ET AL =

  found that the posterior hippocampal volume of London taxi drivers’ brains was positively correlated with their time as a taxi driver and that there were significant differences between the taxi drivers’ brains and those of controls. This shows that the brain can permanently change in response to frequent exposure to a particular task.
• (+) FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY 


  TAIJIRI ET AL =

   found that stem cells provided to rats after brain trauma showed a clear development of neuron-like cells in the area of injury. This demonstrates the ability of the brain to create new connections using neurons manufactured by stem cells.
• (-) FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY 


  it is possible that this ability can deteriorate with age. ELBERT ET AL concluded that the capacity for neural reorganisation is much greater in children than in adults, meaning that neural regeneration is less effective in older brains. This may explain why adults find change more demanding than do young people. Therefore, we must consider individual differences when assessing the likelihood of functional recovery in the brain after trauma.