Plasticity and Functional Recovery of the brain after trauma Flashcards
1
Q
what is brain plasticty?
A
the idea that the brain has the ability to change throughout life
2
Q
what happens to the brain during infancy?
A
- the brain experiences rapid growth in the number of neurons
- peaking at 15,000 neurons at age 2-3 years (Gopnik et al)
3
Q
what is synaptic pruning?
A
as we age:
- the rarely used connections are deleted
- frequently used connections are strengthened
4
Q
what does synaptic pruning enable?
A
- lifelong plasticity
- new neural connections form in response to new demands of the brain
5
Q
who are the researchers involved in the research of synaptic pruning?
A
- Maguire et al
- Draganski et al
6
Q
what did Maguire et al find?
A
- studied the brains of London taxi drivers and found significantly more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than the matched control group
