Plasticty And Functional Recovery

Question 1

Brain plasticity

Answer 1

It is the ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. It allows brains to cope better with the indirect effects of brain damage, such as after a stroke or with a haemorrhage.

Question 2

Factors that effect brain plasticity

Answer 2

Life experience- nerve pathways that are used frequently, develop stronger connections. Those a rarely used eventually die, while by developing new connections and reducing weak ones the brain can adapt to different environments. Boyke teaching 60 year olds to juggle increased grey matter in the visual cortex

Video games- Kuhn found that playing video games led to an increase in grey matter of the visual cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum. This was after playing super Marion for at least 30 minutes everyday for a month.it creates new synaptic connections in the brain such as for working memory, motor performance etc

Meditation- Davidson compared the. Students and ten Tibetan monks and the monks had greater game wave activity even before they started meditation. Gamma waves coordinate brain activity

Question 3

Plasticity evaluation

Answer 3

+) Rats in complex environments have more new new neurons then those in cages, this was most prominent in the hippocampus which deals with long term memories and navigation, this was found by Kepperman

+) Maguire measured London taxi drivers brains using MRI scans and found that they had larger hippocampuses and this size had a positive correlation with how long they had been taxi drivers.

Question 4

Functional recovery

Answer 4

Following brain damage the brain can redistribute functions performed by the damaged area to other areas, this is more likely when the brain is still growing. But this can happen at any age.
This happens through the growth of new neurons and connection called neural regeneration while the transfer of functions is called neural reorganisation. Axon sprouting leads to new nerve endings connected with other nerves to make new neural pathways

This slows down aged a number of weeks so physiotherapy is needed to maintain improvements in functioning, this consists of movement therapy and electrical stimulation to the brain

Question 5

Evaluation functional recovery

Answer 5

+) Phantom limb syndrome PLS is evidence if neural reorganisation as it occurs in the somatosensory after losing a limb causing people to experience still having a missing limb which can be painful

+) Hubel and Torten sewed one kittens eyes shut and found the visual cortex for the shut eye continued to process information from other eye. This shows reorganisation occurs

-) Schneider found that patients who had a college degree are 7 times more likely to disability free one year after moderate to severe brain injury to those who did not finish secondary school so neural reserve could be a factor in recovery from a brain injury