PLASTICITY & FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY

• What is neural plasticity?

  brains ability to change and adapt throughout life
• What did Maguire find regarding Neural Plasticity?

  compared brains of 44 male London taxi drivers with non-taxi drivers. matched on gender, handedness and age. Found the taxi drivers had more grey matter in their hippocampus. The longer they had driven the more they had

  Hippocampus is involved in spatial and navigation skills
• what did Draganski find regarding neural plasticity?

  scanned brains of medical students 3 months before and after final exams, found changes in hippocampus and parietal cortex
• What is functional recovery of the brain after trauma?

  the brain is able to ”re-wire” itself through making structural changes, healthy areas take over the functions of the damaged areas
• What is spontaneous recover?

  where the process happens quickly after trauma then slows down, may then require rehabilitative therapy
• What is axonal sprouting?

  growth of new nerve ending to connect with undamaged neurons
• what is the reformation of blood vessels?

  restoring blood flow to damaged areas
• what is recruitment of similar areas?

  the opposite side of the brain will perform specific tasks
• what are the structural changes of the brain in functional recovery?

  axonal sprouting

  reformation of blood vessels

  recruitment of similar areas
• Strengths of Plasticity and recovery?

  increased understanding has practical applications - spontaneous recovery of the brain tends to slow down over a few weeks, they then may need intervention to make recovery succesful, this can then lead to using neurophysiotherapy
• understanding plasticity has helped to explain the experiences of amputees

  many amputees experience “phantom limb syndrome” (feeling pain in their missing limb)

  Thought to be caused by the reorganisation of the somatosensory cortex to compensate for the missing limb
• Animal studies support

  Hubel Wiesel sewed shut one eye of a kitten, found the associated area of the visual cortex started to process information from the other eye
• debate over how long your brain remains “plastic”

  originally thought the brain would stop developing after a certain age. However, although plasticity reduced with age, research has found evidence of brain changes throughout life