plasticity Flashcards
what does plasticity mean ?
refers to the brains tendency to change or adapt functionally and physically because of experience and new learning. Involving the growth of new connections.
What does it mean that a brain changes throughout life in terms of AGE and connections.
Brain is referred to as plastic because it changes throughout life. During infancy, the brain experiences rapid growth in the number of synaptic connections, peaking at 15,000 at 2-3 yrs old. This is twice as many as an adults brain.
- As people gain new experiences, nerve pathways that are used frequently make stronger connections, neurons that are not used often die.
what does the term synaptic pruning mean?
- by developing new connections and pruning away any weak ones the brain constantly adapts to changing environment.
- this process proves that it is possible for the adult brain to be capable of change.
What is the aim of Maguire’s key study on plasticity ?
aim- to investigate if change in the brain could be detected because of extensive experience of spatial navigation.
what was the method of Maguire’s study of plasticity ?
method- 16 male London taxi drivers and 50 males who did no drive taxis(control group). MRI scanners scanned their brain to see the amount of grey matter in the taxi drivers compared to control participants.
What were the findings of Maguire’s study of plasticity ?
findings- the posterior hippocampus of taxi drivers was larger than control participants.
This part of the brain is associated with spatial and navigational skills in humans.
the posterior campus volume was positively correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver.
what is the conclusion of Maguire’s study on plasticity ?
- the brain changes physically because of experience.
what is the evaluation point for Maguire’s study on plasticity about it being empirical- mri scan?
p- a strength is that its highly empirical.
e- brain scans provide objective evidence to prove taxi drivers have a greater volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than the control group.
e- this is a strength as it provides verifiable evidence therefore giving the theory of brain plasticity to have high validity .
what is the limiting evaluation point about population validity for maguires key study on plasticity?
p- small sample of 16 male London taxi drivers.
e- its possible this group of participants are not representative of the population they are drawn from.
e- meaning may not be valid. Sample also only consist of males so does represent females.
