What does plasticity of the brain mean

There are a few defining characteristics of neuroplasticity. While plasticity occurs throughout the lifetime, certain types of changes are more predominant at specific ages. The brain tends to change a great deal during the early years of life, for example, as the immature brain grows and organizes itself. Generally, young brains tend to be more sensitive and responsive to experiences than much older brains. But this does not mean that adult brains are not capable of adaptation.

Genetics can also have an influence. The interaction between the environment and genetics also plays a role in shaping the brain's plasticity. Plasticity is ongoing throughout life and involves brain cells other than neurons, including glial and vascular cells.

It can occur as a result of learning, experience, and memory formation, or as a result of damage to the brain. While people used to believe that the brain became fixed after a certain age, newer research has revealed that the brain never stops changing in response to learning. In instances of damage to the brain, such as during a stroke, the areas of the brain associated with certain functions may be damaged. Eventually, healthy parts of the brain may take over those functions and the abilities can be restored.

It is important to note, however, that the brain is not infinitely malleable. Certain areas of the brain are largely responsible for certain actions.

For example, there are areas of the brain that play critical roles in things such as movement, language, speech, and cognition. Damage to key areas of the brain can result in deficits in those areas because, while some recovery may be possible, other areas of the brain simply cannot fully take over those functions that were affected by the damage.

There are things you can do to help encourage your brain to adapt and change. Some of the ways that you can utilize neuroplasticity in beneficial ways include:. Learning environments that offer plenty of opportunities for focused attention, novelty, and challenge have been shown to stimulate positive changes in the brain.

This is particularly important during childhood and adolescence, but enriching your environment can continue to provide brain rewards well into adulthood.

Things you can try include:. Research has shown that sleep plays an important role in dendritic growth in the brain. By strengthening these connections, you may be able to encourage greater brain plasticity. Sleep has been shown to have important effects on both physical and mental health.

You can find ways to improve your sleep by practicing good sleep hygiene. Regular physical activity has been shown to have a number of brain benefits. Some research suggests that exercise might help prevent neuron losses in key areas of the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and other functions. One review published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience suggested that exercise could also play a role in neurogenesis in the hippocampal region. Beliefs and theories about how the brain works have evolved substantially through the years.

Early researchers believed that the brain was "fixed" while modern advances have indicated that the brain is more flexible. Up until the s, researchers believed that changes in the brain could only take place during infancy and childhood. By early adulthood, it was believed that the brain's physical structure was mostly permanent.

In his book, "The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph From the Frontiers of Brain Science," which took a historical look at early theories, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge suggested that this belief that the brain was incapable of change primarily stemmed from three major sources, including:. Early on, the psychologist William James had suggested that the brain was perhaps not as unchanging as previously believed.

Way back in , in his book "The Principles of Psychology," he wrote, "Organic matter, especially nervous tissue, seems endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity. In the s, researcher Karl Lashley found evidence of changes in neural pathways of rhesus monkeys. By the s, researchers began to explore cases in which older adults who had suffered massive strokes were able to regain functioning, demonstrating that the brain was more malleable than previously believed.

Modern researchers have also found evidence that the brain is able to rewire itself following damage.

Modern research has demonstrated that the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in order to adapt to new experiences, learn new information, and create new memories. There are ways through which brain plasticity can enable brain-damaged people to regain some of their past capacities.

Each of the approaches through which the nervous system adapts its functionality has differences in terms of how it occurs, as well as in which patients it occurs.

Functional plasticity can occur through a process termed axonal sprouting, where undamaged axons grow new nerve endings to reconnect the neurons, whose links were severed through damage. Undamaged axons can also sprout nerve endings and connect with other undamaged nerve cells, thus making new links and new neural pathways to accomplish what was a damaged function. Although each brain hemisphere has its own functions, if one brain hemisphere is damaged, the intact hemisphere can sometimes take over some of the functions of the damaged one.

In homologous area adaptation, brain behavior becomes active in the equivalent part on the opposite side of the brain from where it usually occurs Grafman, If it normally occurs on the right side, then it would instead move to the left side, and vice versa. This functional neuroplasticity occurs more often in children than in adults. Shifting over a module to the opposite side displaces some of the functionality that was originally there. Cross-modal reassignment occurs when the brain uses an area that would normally process a certain type of sensory information such as sight for a different type of sensory information instead such as sound.

When a brain region does not receive sensory data as expected, say because a person has become blind, this brain region may become repurposed for another sense, like touch. In map expansion, the brain notices that a certain area gets extensive use, so it expands this area Grafman, This is comparable to how the body can notice that certain muscles get more use such as those involved in an often-played sport , then grows those muscles larger.

When a person often engages in an activity or experience, this produces enlargement of the associated brain region. The brain growth occurs right away, so that neuroscientists can detect it through brain imaging technologies while it occurs Grafman, Compensatory masquerade involves the brain reusing a component to conduct a mental operation other than what it would typically do.

Case studies of stroke victims who have experienced brain damage and thus lost some brain functions have shown that the brain has an ability to re-wire itself with undamaged brain sites taking over the functions of damaged brain sites. Thus, neurons next to damaged brain sites can take over at least some of the functions that have been lost. A youth with a right parietal lobe injury wound up with the left parietal lobe taking over some functions normally occurring on the right side.

The youth then had difficulty with tasks normally occurring on the left side, because some right-side equivalents had taken over left-side brain resources Grafman, Neuronal Unmasking:. However, when brain damage occurs these synapses can become activated and open up connections to regions of the brain that are not normally active and take over the neural function that has been lost as a result of damage.

Structural neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change its physical structure as a result of learning, involving reshaping individual neurons nerve cells. During infancy, the brain experiences rapid growth in the number of synaptic connections.

As each neuron matures, it sends out multiple branches, this increases the number of synaptic contacts from neuron to neuron. At birth, each neuron in the cerebral cortex has approximately 2, synapses. By the time a child is three years old, the number of synapses is approximately 15, synapses per neuron Gopnick, et al.

This process continues throughout our life. Part of the development of the vision system is genetically hardwired. However, another part of this development depends on neuroplasticity. As a child grows, the incoming information from light sources, such as light reflected off the faces of caregivers, provides necessary cues for the brain to adjust its growth patterns.

The equivalent plasticity-based growth also occurs with the other senses, calibrating the young person to local conditions. The development of language reveals even more about neuroplasticity. Again, part of this functionality is genetically hardwired, but part depends on feedback from the environment.

An individual has certain nerve cells programmed to become grammar modules. For these to function correctly, they require the input of specific grammatical rules from a culture, such as the rules of English or Spanish. Thus, neuroplasticity enables the brain to process language. New neural connections, different densities of nerve cells, varying strengths of neural connections.

How does neuroplasticity work? At the most basic level, it starts with the production of a new nerve cell neurogenesis. Then, individual neurons develop new connections to each other. A neuron works by sending or receiving electrochemical signals with other neurons in the brain. The way that individual neurons connect to each other controls how the signals get sent, like the routing of messages over the internet or of instructions codes in a computer processor.

As each neuron develops connections to others, this results in growing clusters of cells. The neurons can adjust the level or strength of signal with connecting neurons. This ongoing process provides fine-tuning of the neural architecture. Rewiring larger regions, reorganizing the nervous system at multiple levels. Neurons work together at several different levels.

Not only individual cells, but even clumps within brain regions can grow in greater or lower density. As cells grow or die in different regions, the relative densities vary. Such variations can provide an even broader adjustment or neuroplasticity in the brain than individual nerve cell connections. When nerve bundles become broken, through injury or surgery, the brain can regrow these elements Doidge, Surprisingly, the brain can reconnect itself in an efficient manner even to deal with sizable upsets.

It operates like a plant, able to regrow around lost parts. Gradually, the repairs extend through subcortical layers, reaching larger-scale cortical levels of the brain.

This growth occurs throughout the nervous system, including the spine and distributed branches, not only in the brain. Recurring synaptic connections grow more efficient cell assembly theory. The nerve connections grow stronger when one cell fires before the other, rather than when they both fire simultaneously.

Sequential firing produces a causal relationship, enabling the nervous system to learn. As a comparison, internet search engines track which sites link directly to which other sites.

The combined directional links of billions of sites produce an efficient map of the internet, as the combined directional links of billions of neurons produce an efficient map of the body and its environment. The famous study by Maguire et al. She studied 16 London taxi drivers and found an increase of the volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus compared to a control group. This area of the brain is involved in short-term memory and spatial navigation.

Further support comes from Mechelli et al who found that learning a second language increases the density of grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex and that the degree of structural reorganization in this area is influenced by the fluency attained and the age at which the second language was learnt.

With age, neuroplasticity decreases however Mahncke et al. This has potential benefits for society as a brain-plasticity-based intervention targeting normal age-related cognitive decline may delay the time when these people need support in their everyday life.

Learning and new experiences cause new neural pathways to strengthen whereas neural pathways which are used infrequently become weak and eventually die.

Thus brains adapt to changing environments and experiences. Thus, the complex cognitive demands involved in mastering video games caused the formation of new synaptic connections in brain sites controlling spatial navigation, planning, decision-making, etc.

Davidson matched 8 experienced practitioners of Tibetan Buddhist meditation against 10 participants with no meditation experience. Submit a Question. A worldwide celebration of the brain that brings together scientists, families, schools, and communities during the third week in March. Join the Campaign. Do you believe any of these common neuromyths?

Test your knowledge. Read More. For Educators Log in. Ask an Expert. About the Author. Submit Your Question. Email address is invalid. Question sent.