plasticity and functional recovery

Question 1

what is plasticty

Answer 1

how flexible something is

e.g muscles in biceps are extrememly plastic

Question 2

brain plasitcy

Answer 2

brain constantly chnages due to experiences, training and injury

very adpatable to new situations

pruning-where connections are lost due to lack of use
bridging-where new connections are made due to use

Question 3

limit to plasticty

Answer 3

while, belived such chnage restricted to childhood (critical period)

adult brain was fixed in terms of structure and fucntion

now, research suggests neural correlations can change at any time in life

gain new ones by learning or experinece

this is plasticity

Question 4

research into plasticity

Answer 4

studied brains of London Cab drivers

all passed knowedge tests of recalling city streets and possible routes

due to this learning, structure of their brains was alterned

had morevolume of grey matter in posterior hippocampus than control group, area associted with spatial and navigational skills

postie correlation between how long they had been in job and how pronounced these structural differences were

Question 5

functional recovery after trauma

Answer 5

after trauma e.g physical injury or stroke unaffected areas of brain often adpat and compensate for the damaged areas

healthy brain areas may take over the functions of areas that are damaged or even lost

can occur quickly after trauma (spontaneous recall) and then slow down after weeks/months then rehabiliation may be needed

Question 6

what happens in brain during functional recovery

Answer 6

brain can rewire/reorganise itself by forming new synapic connections closed to the damaged area

axonal sprouting-growth of new nerve endings whcih connect to undamaged nerve cells to form new neural pathwya s

reformation of blood vessels