Sharon Begley - The New Science of Neuroscience
Dogmas are very powerful.
The brain is not hard-wired
The Immutable Brain
Learning: mapping brain structures to brain functions
Unlearning: scientific paradigms die hard
The adult brain can generate new neurons. It used to be thought that no new neurons are born in the adult brain, and the structures of the brain functions do not change.
Interesting that in 1962 Joseph Altman at MIT reported detecting new neurons in brains of adult rats, cats and guinea pigs. Michael Kaplan at Boston U. in the '70's showed neurons born in the brains of adult rats. Why were these claims widely ignored?
Eminence trumps evidence?
1890 - William James - Nervous tissues seem endowed with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity
1912 - T. Graham Brown and Charles Sherrington - Movement maps in the motor cortex varied from monkey to monkey
1923 - Karl Lashley - Monkey brained changed month to month depending on activities
Much of the above research was set aside.
The new dogma: The young brain can change; the mature brain is set in stone
Throughout the late '70's and early '80's more research on brain plasticity occured, and was largely ignored again.
But the brain can change:
It can change in response to signals from the outside world - that is from sensory experience
Stroke patients - Increased grey matter in areas responsible for motor skills, grey matter increase corresponded to increased ability to use affected arm
Violin players - Players who learned as adults had expanded motor cortex region in the area that controls the fingering digits
The power of attention: Monkey hear, money feel
Side note I found Googling - Stroke Victims and Wii Fit
What is the crucial input for neuroplasticity - ATTENTION
The mind changes the brain (Inside World)
Can the brain change it's structure and function. Also, can mental training help us accomplish this?
Mind Changing the Brain
Piano - Half the volunteers learn a five finger exercise on a piano keyboard and the other half just imagine playing
The people that had imagined (virtual practice) had the same amount of growth in the motor cortex
The people that had imagined (virtual practice) had the same amount of growth in the motor cortex
Mindfulness - The practice of observing your inner experience in a way that is fully aware but non-judgemental. You stand outside your own mind.
OCD - 10 weeks of mindfulness therapy reduced OCD activity as much as medication did
Self-directed neuroplasticity - proof that mental activity can alter brain chemistry... The mind can change the brain.
Depression - When people with depression learn to think about their unhealthy thoughts in a different way, over activity in the frontal cortex, which characterizes the disease, died down.
But activity in the brain's emotion regions increased.
Happiness, Compassion and Empathy - Evidence that meditation increased happiness. "The Wired Monk"
Break time
No comments:
Post a Comment