What is neuroplasticity of the brain?
Answers
Explanation:
Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment.
Answer:
As you well know. the brain is not made of plastic…Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, refers to the brain’s ability to CHANGE throughout life.
The human brain has the amazing ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells (neurons).
In addition to genetic factors, the environment in which a person lives, as well as the actions of each person, play a significant role in plasticity.
Neuroplasticity occurs in the brain…
1- At the beginning of life: when the immature brain organizes itself.
2- In case of brain injury: to compensate for lost functions or maximize remaining functions.
3- Through adulthood: whenever something new is learned and memorized
Plasticity, learning and memory
For a long time, it was believed that as we aged, the connections in the brain became fixed, and then simply faded. Research has shown that in fact the brain never stops changing through learning. Plasticity is the capacity of the brain to change with learning.
Changes associated with learning occur mostly at the level of connections between neurons: New connections form and the internal structure of the existing synapses change. Did you know that when you become an expert in a specific domain, the areas in your brain that deal with this type of skill will grow?
For instance, London taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus (in the posterior region) than London bus drivers. Why is that? It is because this region of the hippocampus is specialized in acquiring and using complex spatial information in order to navigate efficiently. Taxi drivers have to navigate around London whereas bus drivers follow a limited set of routes.
Plasticity can also be observed in the brains of bilinguals. It looks like learning a second language is possible through functional changes in the brain: the left inferior parietal cortex is larger in bilingual brains than in monolingual brains.
Plastic changes also occur in musicians brains compared to non-musicians. Gaser and Schlaug compared professional musicians (who practice at least 1hour per day) to amateur musicians and non-musicians. They found that gray matter (cortex) volume was highest in professional musicians, intermediate in amateur musicians, and lowest in non-musicians in several brain areas involved in playing music: motor regions, anterior superior parietal areas and inferior temporal areas.