functional recovery after trauma

Question 1

What happens when someone is injured

Answer 1

• Following physical injury, or other forms of trauma, unaffected areas of the brain are often able to adapt and compensate for those areas that are damaged.
• The functional recovery that may occur in the brain after trauma is another example of neuroplasticity.
• Healthy areas may take over the functions of those areas that are damaged, destroyed or missing.
• This can happen very quickly!
• Brain rewires and reorganises itself by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage

Question 2

what happens after the brain reorganises itself

Answer 2

secondary neural pathways not typically used to carry out certain functions are activated or unmasked to enable functioning to continue in the same way as before and the brain undergoes some structural changes

Question 3

what are the 3 brain changes

Answer 3

axonal sprouting, denervation supersensitivity and recruitment of homologous areas on the opposite side of the brain

Question 4

what is axonal sprouting

Answer 4

growth of new nerve endings that connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form neuronal pathways

Question 5

what is denervation supersensitivity

Answer 5

axons that do a similar job become aroused to a higher level to compensate for the ones that are lost
negative consequence of oversensitivity to messages such as pain

Question 6

what is recruitment of homologous areas on opposite side of the brain

Answer 6

specific tasks can still be performed e.g. Broca’s area damaged on left side of brain, the right-sided equivalent would carry out its functions. After period of time, functionality may shift back to the left side

Question 7

Evaluation of functional recovery

Answer 7

Real- world application
P - One strength of functional recovery research is its real-world application.
E - understanding the processes involved in plasticity has contributed to the field of neurorehabilitation. Simply understanding that axonal growth is possible encourages new therapies to be tried. For example constraint-induced movement therapy is used with stroke patients whereby they repeatedly practise using the affected part of their body (such as an arm) while the unaffected arm is restrained.
E - This shows that research into functional recovery is useful as it helps medical professionals know when interventions need to be made.

Cognitive reserve
P - One limitation of functional recovery is that level of education may influence recovery rates.
E - Schneider et al. (2014) revealed that the more time people with a brain injury had spent in education - taken as an indication of their ‘cognitive reserve’ - the greater their chances of a disability - free recovery (DFR). 40% of those who achieved DFR had more than 16 years’ education compared to about 10% of those who had less than 12 years’ education.
E - This would imply that people with brain damage who have insufficient DFR are less likely to achieve a full recovery.