AO3 - Plasticity and Functional Recovery

• Research to support comes from a case study on patient EB. EB suffered from brain damage that resulted in the removal of his left hemisphere and therefore his language centres. Despite this, after some time EB managed to regain some of his language ability, which would not have been possible if the brain was completely lateralised. This suggests that EB’s brain has experienced recruitment of homologous areas and demonstrates the brain can adapt to produce language even when the left hemisphere is not present or functioning, therefore supporting the idea of plasticity and functional recovery.
• However, this research lacks population validity as the case study only involves one participant, EB who had severe brain damage. This is an issue as it may have caused unique changes in the brain that may have influenced the plasticity and functional recovery of the brain. This limits how well the research can be generalised to the wider population as different genders or age groups may experience different levels of plasticity in the brain. Thus, this lowers the external validity of the research into plasticity and functional recovery.
• Further research to support plasticity of the brain comes from Maguire et al who studied the brains of London taxi drivers. It was found that those who had been taxi drivers for a long time had a greater volume of grey matter in the area responsible for spatial and navigational skills (posterior hippocampus) in comparison to those who had only been a taxi driver for a short time. Therefore, this supports plasticity because it suggests that the change in the structure of the brain was altered by their experience and greater knowledge of the roads.