Plasticity and functional recovery

• Plasticity: describes the brain's tendency to change and adapt (functionally and physically) as a result of experience and learning
• Functional recovery: a form of plasticity; following damage through trauma, the brain's ability to redistribute or transfer functions  performed by damaged areas to undamaged areas

Maguire (2000) - the taxi driver study

• Procedure: Maguire studied the brains of London taxi drivers using an MRI
• Findings: taxi drivers had significantly more grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than in the matched control group. The longer they had been doing the job, the more pronounced the structural difference…