Brain plasticity Flashcards
What is brain plasticity?
The brain’s ability to change and adapt.
Synaptic pruning
- Synaptic connections reach a peak at 2-3 years old (correlates with language development).
- SYNAPTIC PRUNING- occurs as we age / unused connections die away and frequently used connections strengthen.
- Initially thought changes happen during a critical period of development- infancy/ childhood.
- Neural connections can change at any point in life.
What can cause neural connection changes?
Examples:
- degenerative disorders,
- drugs/ alcohol,
- learning- revision,
- new experiences
Functional recovery
Brain repairs itself following injury or trauma (eg. stroke).
Healthy brain areas take over the function of damaged areas.
Most recovery occurs immediately following a trauma (spontaneous recovery) + then slows over subsequent weeks/ months.
Much more efficient and effective during childhood- lost plasticity with age (Bezzola et al. 2012)
What happens during functional recovery?
AXONAL SPROUTING: new nerve endings grow to connect surrounding, undamaged neurons to each other.
REFORMATION OF BLOOD VESSELS
RECRUITMENT OF HOMOLOGOUS AREAS: similar areas in the opposite hemisphere take on the tasks normally completed by their damaged counterpart.
AO3 - support
- Maguire et al. London taxi driver research. Brain scans- more grey matter in hippocampus / increased with years working, associated with navigational skills.
- (data collected scientifically through brain scans- objective methodology, doesn’t allow for bias, reliable results).
- Practical application- contributed to neurohabilitation. Physical therapy to maintain improvements (electrical stimulation).
- Draganski et al. imaged brains of medical students 3 months pre and post exams. Learning induced changes has occurred in the posterior hippocampus.
AO3- critiques
- Maguires study- limited sample -> limited generalisability.
