Scientists used to think your brain, after a few years of learning, turned to cement.
These days, they think it’s more gooey.
That’s what scientists are calling “neuroplasticity” – the ability of your brain to change its structure and function, even into old age.
Some scientists are calling this is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries.
Norman Doidge, M.D., a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, author, essayist and poet, is the author of “The Brain That Changes Itself,” a book about the brain’s plasticity. Included is a collection of case histories detailing the amazing progress of people whose conditions had been dismissed as hopeless.
These case histories are astonishing:
- A woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole
- A woman labeled retarded who cured her deficits with brain exercises and now cures those of others
- Blind people learning to see
- Learning disorders cured
- IQs raised
- Aging brains rejuvenated
- Painful phantom limbs erased
- Stroke patients recovering their faculties
- Children with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully
And so on.
Your brain is not hardwired.
As he says in his book, the brain is not, as was thought, like a machine, or “hardwired” like a computer. Neuroplasticity not only gives hope to those with mental limitations, or what was thought to be incurable brain damage, but expands our understanding of the healthy brain and the resilience of human nature.
“Unlike a computer, the brain is constantly adapting itself,” he writes. “It doesn’t simply learn; it is always `learning how to learn.’”
Dr. Doidge is on the Research Faculty at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry.
Want to hear more from Dr. Doidge? Here’s a link to an interesting podcast.
http://brainsciencpodcast.wordpress.com/2007/12/14
Authors home page
http://www.normandoidge.com/index/
Want to avoid that cement-like feeling in your brain? Play some casual games once in awhile. Here’s a few on our web site.
How is your brain doing? Are your neurons feeling gooey?
there is an interesting conversation on the subject of neuroplasticity between neurologist Richard Davidson and Daniel Goleman (the author of Emotional Intelligence) which can be seen at morethansound.net