Topic 7- Plasticity

Question 1

PEEL 1
Animal studies- rats

Answer 1

P- Animal studies support plasticity
E- Animal studies support plasticity in response to an enriched environment. Kemperman found that rats kept in complex environments developed more new neurons than rats kept in lab cages.
E- In particular, they showed an increase in neurons in the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and navigation.
L- This supports the idea that the number of new neurons can change in adult animals in response to environmental stimulation.

Question 2

PEEL 2
Taxi drivers

Answer 2

P- London taxi drivers also demonstrate plasticity.
E- Maguire et al. measured the grey matter in taxi drivers brains using MRI scanning, and found a positive correlation between the size of their posterior hippocampus and how long they had worked as a taxi driver. E- This was a way of operationalising their navigational experience.
L- So it seems that the more navigational experience the drivers had, the larger their posterior hippocampus had become, supporting plasticity in response to experience.

Question 3

PEEL 3
College level attainment

Answer 3

P- Patients with college level educational attainment are much more likely to recover well after
TBI.
E-Schneider et al. retrospectively examined data from the US TBI Database.
E- Nearly 40% of patients with college level education. achieved disability-free recovery after a year, compared to less than 10% of patients who left school early.
L- The researchers concluded that ‘cognitive reserve could be a factor in neural adaptation during recovery from TBI.