Plasticity and functional recovery of the brain after trauma

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What is brain plasticity?
The brains ability to change throughout life
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When does the brain experience its most rapid growth?
Infancy - age 2-3 years
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What is synaptic pruning?
Rarely used synaptic connections are deleted and frequently used ones are strengthened .
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What was thought to happen after a critical period?
The brain would remain fixed and static in terms of function and structure.
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What research did Maguire et al conduct?
She studied the brains of London taxi drivers and found more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than a control group.
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What is the posterior hippocampus involved in?
Development of spatial and navigational skills
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What did she find a poistive correlation between?
The longer they had been in the joe, the more pronounced the structural difference
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What research did Draganski et al do?
Imaged the brains of medical students 3 months before and 3 months after their final exams.
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What were his findings?
Learning-induced changes had occurred in the posterior hippocampus and the parietal cortex.
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What did Michelli et al find?
That people who were bilingual had a larger parietal cortex than monolingual control group
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What is functional recovery?
After a physical injury or brain trauma such as a stroke, unaffected areas of the brain will take over and compensate for the areas that were damaged.
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How quickly does this occur?
Can occur quickly after trauma and then slow down after several weeks/months.
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How is the brain able to rewire itself?
It creates new synaptic connections close to the area of damage.
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What is 'unmasking'
When secondary neural pathways that wouldn't typically be used for a specific function and activated to enable functioning to continue.
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What are the three structural changes that support this process?
Axonal sprouting (the growth of new nerve endings that connect to undamaged nerve cells to form new neural pathways), reformation of blood vessels, and recruitment of homologous (similar) areas on the opposite side of the brain
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What is the practical application of plasticity?
Contributed to neurorehabilitation - techniques created for when functional recovery slows down
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What are some examples of these techniques?
Physical therapy, movement therapy or electrical stimulation of the brain
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What are the negative effects of plasticity?
Can lead to maladaptive behavioural consequences such as drug use leading to poorer cognitive functioning and an increased chance of dementia.
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What is phantom limb syndrome and who experiences it?
60-80% of amputees experience it - it is the continued expeirnece of sensations in the missing limb (usually unpleasant and painful) - due to
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What is it due to?
Cortical reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex
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What is the connection between age and plasticity?
Functional plasticity reduces with age.
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What did Ladina Bezzola find that contradicts this?
That 40 hours of golf training produces changes in the neural representation of movement in ppts age 40-60.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

When does the brain experience its most rapid growth?

Back

Infancy - age 2-3 years

Card 3

Front

What is synaptic pruning?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What was thought to happen after a critical period?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What research did Maguire et al conduct?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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