Plasticity and functional recovery

Question 1

What is plasticity?

Answer 1

The brain’s tendency to change and adapt as a result of new experiences and learning.

Question 2

What is functional recovery?

Answer 2

A form of plasticity which involves the redistribution or transfer of functions in the event of brain damage or trauma

Question 3

What is the peak amount of synaptic connections and when is it reached?

Answer 3

15,000 at age 2-3

Question 4

What is synaptic pruning?

Answer 4

As we age, unused/rarely used connections are deleted and the ones we use frequently are strengthened

Question 5

What was the Maguire at al (2000) study and what did it show?

Answer 5

She found that the brains of London taxi driver had significantly more grey matter than a control group, showing that learning and experiences can have an impact on brain structure

Question 6

What are the 3 types of functional recovery?

Answer 6

Axonal sprouting- Growing new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged cells to form new neuronal pathways
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of homologous (similar) areas on the opposite side of the brain to perform specific task

Question 7

What practical applications do these idea have?

Answer 7

Knowing how the brain recovers and adapts has lead to improvements in treatments for various brain related issues

Question 8

How can functional recovery have negative effects?

Answer 8

(Example) 60-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome due to reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex

Question 9

How does functional recovery change as we age?

Answer 9

Whilst it is less effective, Bezzola et al (2012) demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produced changes neural representation of movement in participants aged 40-60 (less neural activity was needed to do the same thing)

Question 10

What support does this idea have from animal studies?

Answer 10

Hubel and Wiesel (1963) sewed one eye of a kitten shut and found that the corresponding hemisphere started to process information from the other eye

Question 11

What is a cognitive reserve?

Answer 11

Schneider et al (2014) people with 16+ years of education were able to recover successfully up to 40% of the time while people with 12 years or less only 10%