Functional Recovery and Plasticity
- Created by: 25392539
- Created on: 30-12-22 18:22
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- Plasticity and Functional Recovery
- Plasticity
- The brains ability to adapt over time
- Occurs by reorganising existing neural pathways or by establishing new neural pathways
- At a young age the connections between our neutrons develop, however this carries on throughout our life as we have new experiences and learn new information
- Makes it possible for the brain to potentially recover some of our cognitive functions after a brain trauma
- Functional Recovery
- The brains ability to regain lost cognitive abilities and mental processes which have been damaged as a result of brain injury or disease.
- Due to the brains plasticity it is possible to transfer affected cognitive functions from the damaged area of the brain to a different area to compensate for the lost function.
- This can occur quickly after trauma (spontaneous recovery) or more likely is the result of intensive rehabilitation process.
- Mechanisms
- Neuronal Unmasking
- Normal synapses ‘open’ their connections to enable a nearby (damaged) region to continue its function.
- Axonal Sprouting
- Healthy axons sprout new nerve endings to strengthen existing connections to repair damaged pathways.
- Recruitment of Homologous Areas
- This is where the brain uses existing structures on the opposite hemisphere to replace function on the damaged hemisphere.
- Neuronal Unmasking
- Evaluation
- Maguire et Al
- Taxi drivers - 16 right handed male who have been driving for at least 1.5 years
- Compared to scans of 50 healthy right-handed who do not drive taxis
- Increased grey matter was found in the brains of the taxi drivers in the hippocampus
- Correlation between amount of time spent as taxi driver to volume of grey matter
- Kuhn et al
- Compared a control group with a video game group that trained for 2 months for 30 mins per day
- Increase in grey matter in cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum in the video game group
- Game training resulted in new synaptic transmission in brain areas involved in spatial navigation, working memory, motor performance.
- Danelli
- Reported the case of an Italian boy who at age 2.5 yrs was operated on to remove a tumour
- Removed virtually all left hemisphere
- After intense rehab, his language abilities improved, by age 17 his abilities had significantly improved
- Only slightly slower at naming objects and some minor grammar issues at 17
- Research is flawed
- Maguire did not test taxi drivers before they became taxi drivers so a clear change could not be concluded
- Research by Danelli was a case study so cannot be generalised
- These methodological issues can affect the conclusions
- Real life application
- Following illness or injury, continued forms of physical therapy can be used to maintain improvement
- Motor or speech therapy can be used after a stroke, this can helpthe brain to create new neural pathways
- Maguire et Al
- Factors influencing functional recovery after brain trauma
- Perseverance
- How much effort the individual is putting in, some do not try
- Age
- Younger brains recover more efficiently and quicker as the brains are more ‘plastic’
- Gender
- Women recover better after trauma as their brains are less lateralised and therefore function can transfer across hemispheres more easily
- Perseverance
- Plasticity
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