Plasticity

Question 1

What is plasticity?

Answer 1

The brains tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning

Question 2

What is functional recovery?

Answer 2

If there is damage through trauma, the brain can redistribute functions which are usually performed by the damaged areas to the undamaged areas so the functions still get carried out

Question 3

What does the brain have the ability to do?

Answer 3

Change throughout a lifetime

Question 4

When is there the most synaptic connections in the brain?

Answer 4

Ages 2-3

Question 5

What happens to synaptic connections as we age?

Answer 5

Rarely used connections are deleted and the frequently used ones are strengthened

Question 6

What is synaptic pruning?

Answer 6

The strengthening of frequently used synaptic connections and the removal of rarely used ones

Question 7

What did Maguire et al (2000) find?

Answer 7

Studied the brains of London taxi drivers and found significantly more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus which is associated with navigation and spatial skills, compared to a matched control group.
Remembering all street names has strengthened that area of the brain

Question 8

What did Draginski (2006) find?

Answer 8

Imaged the brains of medical students three months before their exams and after their final exam and found that structural changes occurred in the posterior hippocampus and parietal cortex

Question 9

What did Mechelli et al (2004) find?

Answer 9

A larger parietal cortex in the brains of people who were bilingual compared to matched monolingual controls

Question 10

What is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 10

Brain areas taking over the functions of damaged areas straight away after trauma has occurred.

Question 11

When might spontaneous recovery stop and then what might be required?

Answer 11

Several weeks or months

Rehabilitative therapy

Question 12

What happens in brain injury recovery?

Answer 12

The brain is able to rewire and reorganise itself by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage.
Secondary neural pathways are activated or unmasked to enable functioning to continue.

Question 13

What is axonal sprouting?

Answer 13

The growth of the nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form new neuronal pathways.

Question 14

What structural changes provide evidence for the brain recovering after trauma?

Answer 14

Axonal sprouting
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of homologous areas on opposite sides of the brain to perform specific tasks

Question 15

What is the practical application for research into plasticity?

Answer 15

Neurorehabilitation has been developed following illness or injury to the brain and to be used once spontaneous recovery has slowed down.
Movement therapy and electrical stimulation of the brain to counter the deficits in motor and cognitive functioning.

Question 16

What does the use of neurorehabilitation show?

Answer 16

The brain is able to partly “fix” itself but it requires further support

Question 17

What did Medina et al (2007) find?

Answer 17

There are negative consequences of plasticity

Prolonged drug use has been shown to result in poorer cognitive functioning and possible risk of dementia in later life.

Question 18

How is phantom limb syndrome linked to plasticity?

Answer 18

Around 60%-80% of amputees have phantom limb syndrome
Continued sensations are unpleasant and painful and are thought to be due to cortical reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex that occur after limb loss

Question 19

What reduces with age?

Answer 19

Functional plasticity

Question 20

What did Bezzola (2012) find?

Answer 20

Demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produced shades in the neural representation of movement in participants age 40-60.
Using fMRI researchers observed reduced motor cortex activity in novice golfers compared to the control group suggesting more efficient neural representations after training. This shows that neural plasticity continues throughout the lifespan

Question 21

What did Hubel and Wiesel (1963) find?

Answer 21

They sewed one eye of a kitten shut and analysed the brain cortical responses. The area of the visual cortex associated with the shut eye was not idle but continued to process information from the open eye

Question 22

What did Schneider (2014) find?

Answer 22

The more time a brain injury patient had spent in education, the greater their chances of being disability free
2/5 had more than 16 years education compared to 10% of patients who had less than 12 years eduction

Question 23

Outline the case of Gabby Giffords?

Answer 23

Gabby was a politician who survived an assassination attempt when she was shot in the head. She was placed in a waking coma and made excellent progress over a few months. With rehabilitation she was able to walk again and regained control over her left arm, leg and hand. She could read, understand and speak a number of phrases. Placed in 5% of those who recovered from brain injury