A03 Plasticity/Functional Recovery Of The Brain After Trauma

• Practical application


  Understanding the processes involved in plasticity has contributed to neurorehabilitation. Following damage to the brain, spontaneous recovery tends to slow down after weeks so a form of physical therapy may be required to maintain improvements in functioning.
• Examples of physical therapy (Practical application)

  Movement therapy & electrical stimulation of brain (to counter the deficits in motor/cognitive functioning). Although THE brain may be able to "fix itself" - IT requires further intervention to be completely successful.
• Negative plasticity


  The brains ability to rewire itself can sometimes have maladaptive behavioural consequences. Prolonged drug use for example has been shown to result in poorer cognitive functioning as well as an increased risk of dementia later in life.
• Phantom limb syndrome (Negative plasticity)

  60-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome which is the continued experience of sensations in the missing limb as if it were still there, usually unpleasant- thought to be due to cortical reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex that occurs as a result of limb loss
• Age and Plasticity


  Functional plasticity tends to reduce with age, the brain has greater prosperity for reorganisation in childhood as it is constantly adapting to new experiences and learning.
• Bezzola et al (Age and plasticity)


  Demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produced changes in the neural representation of movements in ppts aged 40-60. Using an fMRI, researchers observed decreased motor cortex activity in the novice golfers compared to the control group. This shows that neural plasticity does continue thropugout the lifespan.
• Support from animal studies

  Wiesal and Hubel sewed one eye of a kitten shut and analysed the brain cortical response. The visual area of the eye that was shut was not idle but continued to process information from the open eye. But findings cannot be extrapulated.
• The concept of cognitive reserve


  Evidence suggests a person's educational attainment may influence how well the brain fucntionally adapts after injury.
• Schneider et al (The concept of cognitive reserve)

  Discovered that the more time people with brain injuries had spent in education (indication of their 'cognitive reserve') increased the chances of a disability free recovery. 2/5 of ppts studies who achieved a disability free recovery had more than 16 years in education compared to the 10% of ppts who had less than 12 years.