PLASTICITY AND FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY

Question 1

Plasticity

Answer 1

• Plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience.
• As people gain new
  experiences, nerve pathways are frequently used and develop stronger connections. If neurons are -rarely/never used they will die (synaptic pruning). The brain is able to constantly adapt and change to the environment.
• However there is a natural decline in cognitive functioning with age that can be attributed to changes in the brain

Question 2

functional recovery

Answer 2

• suggests that following physical injury (e.g. strokes) the unaffected areas of the brain
  are often able to adapt and compensate for those areas that are damaged.
• This process can occur
  spontaneously after the trauma and may slow down after a few weeks.
• The brain is able to rewire and reorganise itself by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage.
• Secondary neural pathways that would not typically be used to carry out certain functions are ‘unmasked’ to enable functioning to continue.
• Which can include axon sprouting (nerve endings grow and connect with undamaged areas), reformation of blood vessels, and recruitment of homologous areas on the opposite
  hemisphere to do specific tasks

Question 3

Maguire (2000) the taxi driver study

Answer 3

• Maguire studied the brains of london taxi drivers using an MRI he found that taxi drivers had significantly more grey mater in the posterior hippocampus than the matched control group.
• The longer they had been in the job the more pronounced the structural difference was you can train parts of your brain by using those parts more frequently

Question 4

One strength of research into plasticity is that there is supporting research.

Answer 4

• For example, Kempermann et al. found an increased number of neurons especially in the hippocampus (RF for formation of new memories) in the brains of rats that were housed in complex environments compared to rats housed in laboratory cages.
• This supports the idea of plasticity as it demonstrates that the brain often changes its own structure in response to the type of environment we are exposed to on an everyday basis.
• Therefore increases the validity of theory. Furthermore, animal studies enable us to monitor the function of the brain before, and after trauma because we researchers cause it.
• Ethically, we couldn’t do this to humans and it’s unlikely that we would have measured their functions before a natural event as we didnt know it was going to happen

Question 5

However, supporting studies often conducted research on animals

Answer 5

• For example, a lot of research into
  plasticity was conducted on animals which is not applicable to humans as the mammalian biological-system is significantly different to animals.
• For example, humans have a more developed frontal lobe, whereas animals have less complex biological structure.
• Therefore we are unable to generalise the findings of the research (on animals) as they are not representative of the complex brain structure of humans.
• Furthermore, psychologists are unable to gain a holistic-understanding of the human brain, and so research is limited

Question 6

real life applications

Answer 6

• Another strength is that research into functional recovery has real life applications.
• For example, it has contributed to the field of neurorehabilitation, doctors have developed therapy techniques for the brain following injury, to support the brain in improving the rate of recovery when it slows down.
• This shows that while the brain has the ability to fix itself partly, it can be accelerated through application of plasticity and functional recovery research demonstrating its usefulness in improving people’s lives

Question 7

There is research to support the role of stem cells in functional recovery.

Answer 7

• For example, Tajiri et al. randomly assigned rats with traumatic brain injuries to 2 different groups.
• One group received a transplant of stem cells into the region of brain damage, and one received a placebo. He found 3 months after the transplant, the brains of the stem cell rats showed clear development of neuron-like cells in the area of injury.
• This supports the role that stem cells can play a role in functional recovery.
• This can also be applied to treatments as it shows us that stem cells should be implemented to accelerate recovery from brain damage.
• This increases the validity of our understanding of stem cells