Phys.org - neuroplasticity

Home
neuroplasticity

Society for Neuroscience to create BrainFacts.org

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has been awarded $1.53 million in funding over six years to create and maintain BrainFacts.org, a unique nonprofit online source for authoritative public information about the progress and pr ...

Medicine & Health - Neuroscience

Feb 16, 2011

4.7 / 5 (3)

0

Taking music seriously: How music training primes nervous system and boosts learning

Those ubiquitous wires connecting listeners to you-name-the-sounds from invisible MP3 players -- whether of Bach, Miles Davis or, more likely today, Lady Gaga -- only hint at music's effect on the soul throughout the ages.

Medicine & Health - Neuroscience

Jul 20, 2010

4.9 / 5 (14)

5 |

Human brains grow, change and can heal themselves

By the time Scott Hayner of Highland Park, Texas, was 7, he had had one skull fracture and three major concussions from falling off horses.

Medicine & Health - Neuroscience

Mar 05, 2010

4 / 5 (11)

0

Distinctive gene expression in brains of relapsing heroin-addicted rats

A group of genes whose expression is significantly altered following exposure to drug paraphernalia after an enforced 'cold-turkey' period have been identified. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience studie ...

Medicine & Health - Neuroscience

Aug 06, 2009

not rated yet

0

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in learning, to large-scale changes involved in cortical remapping in response to injury. The most widely recognized forms of plasticity are learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage. During most of the 20th century, the general consensus among neuroscientists was that brain structure is relatively immutable after a critical period during early childhood. This belief has been challenged by new findings, revealing that many aspects of the brain remain plastic even into adulthood.

Hubel and Wiesel had demonstrated that ocular dominance columns in the lowest neocortical visual area, V1, were largely immutable after the critical period in development. Critical periods also were studied with respect to language; the resulting data suggested that sensory pathways were fixed after the critical period. However, studies determined that environmental changes could alter behavior and cognition by modifying connections between existing neurons and via neurogenesis in the hippocampus and other parts of the brain, including the cerebellum.

Decades of research have now shown that substantial changes occur in the lowest neocortical processing areas, and that these changes can profoundly alter the pattern of neuronal activation in response to experience. Neurological research indicates that experience can actually change both the brain's physical structure (anatomy) and functional organization (physiology). Neuroscientists are currently engaged in a reconciliation of critical period studies demonstrating the immutability of the brain after development with the more recent research showing how the brain can, and does, change.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA

Subscribe to rss feed