Plasticity and functional recovery-EVAL

Question 1

one sterngth of plasticity is research support found my maguire that london taxi drivers have more grey matte rin posterior hippocampus.

Answer 1

This shows that there’s support for palsticity in the brain as the brains of taxi drivers may have CHANGED through tht experience of learning “The knowledge”

HOWEVER, one issue sis that they ONLY used taxi drivers. This could be a problem as it means the study may LACK pop. validity as the rsults can onnly be generalised back to TAXI drivers as we only studied them. This suggests that th efindings of the study may ONLY Support plasticity in th ebrain for taxi drivers and cannot be generalised back o other groups.

Question 2

Another issue with Maguires study is the issue of CAUSE and EFFECT

Answer 2

IT could be the case that they could have BECOME Taxi drivers because they had a well developed posterior hippocampus ALREADY, rather than it developing as a result of becoming a taxi driver (Plasticity)

Question 3

Further research support for plasticity and F.R as Hubel and Wiesal found that when they SEWED one eye of a kitten shut and analysed the brains response, the area of visual cortex to do with shut eye was not idle as we would expect. It CONTINUED to process info from the OPEN eye

Answer 3

This shows support for the fact that the brain has plasticity and F.R as the brain was able to ADAPT after the artificial damage to the eye, and process info from the OPPOSITE side.

Question 4

However, this study was conducted on kittens and could be a problem because?

Answer 4

There is now an issue of animal EXTRAP as we cannot take findings of plasticity on kittens and GENERALISE it back to humans as out brains are very different.

Therefore, just because kittens showed plasticity and F.R, we do NOT know that human brains would show plasticity in the same WAY.

Question 5

One issue with plasticity is that it can have NEGATIVE behavioural consequences

Answer 5

Evidence has shown the brain adapts to prolonged drug use, leading to POORER congitive functioning later in life as well as INCREASED risk of dementia. 60% amputeees known to develop phantum lilmb syndrome due to cortical reorganisatioln in the somatosensory cortex that occurs due to the loss of the limb.

THis suggests that the ablity of t ebrain to adapt through plasticity and FR is not ALWAYS benfeiciail.

Question 6

one strength of plasticy and FR is tha tit has lead to real life application

Answer 6

understanding process involved in plasticity has contribured to the field of nuerorehabilitation. The fact that we know axoanl growth is possible encourages new therapies to be tried, E.g. constraint-infuced movement therpay used with stroke patients where they practise using the affected area of the body while the unaffected arm is restrained.

This is a strength because it does suggest that reserarch into plasticity and FR can have POSITIVE real-life applications.

Question 7

However, one limitaiton of fr is that the individual difference of LEVEL Of education may influence recovery rates,

Answer 7

The more time brain injury patients spent in education the greater their chances of recovery. 2/5 those who had recovered had spent more than 16 years in education compared to 10% had less than 12 years in education.

This shows that the level of FR and plasticity could be affected by INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES in particular, education.

Also case variable of age, younger more likely to recover, have more plasticity in brains.