Brain plasticity

Question 1

What is functional recovery?

Answer 1

When a function is regained after the brain damage because it is transferred from the damaged brain region to an undamaged brain region

Question 2

What is synapse strengthening?

Answer 2

A mechanism used by the brain to enable functional recovery. It is when the likelihood of nerve impulses being transmitted between two neurons increases. This could be by increasing the number of neurotransmitters or number of receptors on the post synaptic neuron

Question 3

What is rewiring?

Answer 3

It is. mechanism used by the brain to enable functional recovery. It was when new neuron connections are formed between two neurons that aren’t already connected

Question 4

How does rewiring contribute to functional recovery?

Answer 4

Rewiring causes axons from a brain region that used to communicate with the damaged region to extend and form new neural connections with nearby regions

Question 5

What is neuronal unmasking?

Answer 5

It is when a silent synapse becomes active after a period of being inactive.

Question 6

What is brain plasticity?

Answer 6

It is the brains ability to change and adapt in response to new experiences, including brain damage.

Question 7

What is the difference between functional recovery and brain plasticity?

Answer 7

Brain plasticity changes based on new experiences in response to brain damage whereas functional recovery refers to the brains plasticity after brain damage

Question 8

What is the evidence for brain plasticity?

Answer 8

• Maguire performed a quasi experiment, comparing the brain of London taxi drivers to non-taxi divers.
• Maguire took images in an MRI scanner to investigate brain plasticity

Question 9

What were Maguire’s findings?

Answer 9

• Maguire found that taxi drivers have an increased brain volume in the hippocampus
• Maguire found a positive correlation between the amount of time participants had spent as a taxi driver and the size of the hippocampus
• Maguire concluded that the experience of being a taxi driver led to changes in the brain like rewiring

Question 10

What are the limitations of Maguire’s study?

Answer 10

• It as a quasi experiment so she couldn’t control participant variables by randomly allocating participants to groups. These participant variables may have influenced the dependent variable, the size of the hippocampus
• We don’t know if the taxi drivers already had larger hippocampus beforehand, which made them want to become a taxi driver. We cannot establish causation, that being a taxi driver causes the hippocampus to grow.