Plasticity

Plasticity:

This is the brain’s ability to change and adapt (functionally and physically) as a result of experience and new learning.

AO1:

Brain plasticity:

We develop a lot of synaptic connections as infants, around 15000, twice as many as there are in the adult brain. As we age, rarely used connections are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened- a process known as synaptic pruning. It was originally thought such changes were restricted to the developing brain within childhood. However, more recent researches suggests that our brains are still developing beyond childhood and into adulthood our brains are still developing and adapting to new environments, and with new experiences we can still learn.

Research into plasticity:

Maguire et al (2000) studied the brains of London taxi drivers and found significantly more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than in a matched control group. This part of the brain is associated with development of spatial and navigational skills in humans and other animals. London cabbies, as part of their training, must take a complex test called ‘The Knowledge’, which assesses their recall of the city streets and possible routes. The findings showed that drivers that had been longer in the job, the more pronounced was the structural different (a positive correlation). This suggests that with new experiences, new neural connections form, showing that our brains are still developing after adulthood. For example, taxi drivers still developing a higher volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus as with the long they are taxi drivers the more routes they learn.

Functional recovery:

A form of plasticity. Following damage through trauma, the brain’s ability to redistribute or transfer functions usually performed by a damaged areas(s) to other undamaged area(s).

Functional recovery of the brain after trauma:

The functional recovery that may occur in the brain after trauma is another example of neural plasticity. Healthy areas may take over the functions of those areas damaged, destroyed or even missing. Neuroscientists suggest that this process…