You Have An Infinite Ability To Adapt And Learn
In The Brain That Changes Itself , Norman Doidge references the work of Michael Merzenich, who challenges the view that we are stuck with the brains we were born with. Our brains are shaped and structured by our environment and the experiences we are exposed to. Our brain remains plastic even in adulthood, allowing us to learn new things and improve our abilities.
How the nervous system works
How does the nervous system work??The central nervous system (CNS) consists of the brain and spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system (PNS) relays messages from sensory receptors to the CNS and back. Neurons are composed of dendrites, a cell body, and an axon. Dendrites receive input from other neurons through their branches. These branches lead to the cell body with DNA. And finally, the axon is a cable-like structure that carries electrical impulses toward adjacent neurons’ dendrites.?However, they don’t touch the adjacent neurons directly. There is a tiny space called a synapse.
Neurons can receive two different types of signals: those that excite them and those that inhibit them. When an exciting signal is received, the neuron will fire its own electrical current. Once the electrical signal gets to the end of the axon, it triggers a release of a chemical called a neurotransmitter into the synapse. This chemical messenger then floats to either an excited or inhibited dendrite, depending on which type of signal was received. Rewiring neurons means alternating these kinds of signals at synapses so that they can be more effective in affecting behavior or cognition.
Plastic brains
Donald O. Hebb , a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, proposed that when two neurons repeatedly fire simultaneously, chemical changes occur in both of them, and they connect more strongly. This means that neuronal structure can be shaped by repeated experience.
When someone transitions from childhood to adulthood, their brain undergoes a major transformation in dealing with the new surroundings. Old emotional habits and routines are abandoned in favor of new ones as the person tries to build a new life after leaving home. Their self-image also changes as they learn to deal with their newfound independence.
When two people fall in love and decide to live together, their new commitment means significant changes in their habits, intentions, and priorities. Their brain needs to unlearn old patterns and learn even more to integrate the new relationship. Millions of neural networks need to be erased and replaced with new ones. This often means leaving the previous one behind - which can be difficult for our brain because it’s used to the past being permanent. Through grieving, our brain accepts that the past is past and is ready to integrate the new relationship into its life.
Stroke patients and neuroplasticity
Norman Doidge shows the power of our plastic brains in the case of stroke patients and the discoveries of Edward Taub. Taub is the inventor of treatment for patients with stroke. He used the power of neuroplasticity to help paralyzed stroke patients rewire their brains so they could move again. His first findings came from experiments on monkeys. He found something interesting.
If a monkey had one arm deafferented, it could not use it. If both arms were deafferented, curiously enough, the monkey could use both. This was a eureka moment for Taub; he proposed that the monkeys didn’t use their arm because they had learned not to use it immediately after the operation on their spinal cord - a period of two to six months. During this time, the monkeys tried to use their arm, and it wouldn’t move, so their brain rewired and essentially forgot that the arm existed. Monkeys who had both arms deafferented didn’t have the luxury of not using them.?They couldn’t rely on the healthy one because they had no healthy one. So they forced themselves to keep using both arms, and their brain didn’t rewire. This led Taub to conclude that people with stroke suffer from learned nonuse of a part of their body when due to a cortical shock in their brains, an attempt to move a limb fails, so the relevant pathways atrophy.
This discovery ultimately led to a form of therapy that helps stroke patients improve the use of their limbs even years after the stroke. Patients must wear slings and mittens on their good arm and then spend hours and hours every day for several weeks to re-learn how to move their bad arm. They start with tasks you would give your toddler to push things around, try to get a square peg to a square hole, pick coins, and other exercises to rebuild their motor skills. It is all about forcing the brain to rewire again and reinforce the forgotten pathways of how to move the arm.
Even patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is difficult to treat by conventional means, can benefit from the brain’s plasticity. When having an OCD attack, the patients need to acknowledge what is happening and that the worry is a symptom of OCD. Then they need to refocus their attention ideally on something positive and pleasure-giving, like a hobby. It may sound easy, but it is not an easy task for these patients. Their OCD is hardwired in their brain and difficult to let go of. What the refocus does is that instead of following the automatic action, worrying, and obsessing, thus reinforcing the current pathways, the patient circumvents these pathways and focuses on their hobby. Over time these pathways weaken, and the OCD gets less dramatic.
Mental practice
These types of mental practices are truly powerful. Take the case of Rudiger Gamm , a German man of normal intelligence who became a human calculator . Even though he was never particularly good at math, he can now calculate the ninth power or the fifth root of numbers and solve tough multiplications in a couple of seconds just in his head.
How did he get there? By practice. From age twenty, he started practicing these mathematical tasks four hours daily. By the end of twenty-six, he could make a living by showing off his mathematical genius on TV. Gamm has done what Anders Ericsson, the deliberate practice expert, described in more general terms. Experts don’t rely on short-term memory for the tasks in their domain. They rely on long-term memory to find key facts and identify patterns and strategies. They rewired their brains to be inhumanely good at their particular domain of expertise. They are utterly ordinary at anything else.
Since action and imagination use the same parts of the brain, you can strengthen your muscles just by thinking.?Guang Yue and Kelly Cole ran an experiment in which they asked two groups of study participants to exercise their finger muscles. The first group was asked to use their physical strength to work out, while the second group was asked to imagine doing the same thing for four weeks. At the end of the study, it was found that those who physically exercised saw a 30% increase in muscle strength, while those who only imagined exercising experienced an increase of 22%.
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What does it mean for you?
The human brain is a mighty and infinitely flexible machine. When trained properly, we can achieve more than we’ve ever imagined. However, the same properties of neuroplasticity that allow us to rewire our brains and change our behaviors in incredible ways also work against us. Neuroplasticity can produce a rigid behavior when constantly exposed to the same routine, culture, and activities. That is how habits are formed. Our spontaneity, creativity, and the unpredictability of childhood evaporate. We routinize our lives, and our brain rewires accordingly.
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What is your take on the topic? Have you ever thought about neuroplasticity and how your brain gets rewired by the environment and the actions you take? Do you have habits that you can’t get rid of? How can the knowledge of the plastic brain help?
Originally posted on my blog about management, leadership, communication, coaching, introversion, software development, and career The Geeky Leader or follow me on Facebook and Twitter: @GeekyLeader
Director of Customer Onboarding
1 年Thank you for sharing this. It reminds me of the research I conducted on the conscious and subconscious mind. It's amazing how the brain and nervous system function so powerfully without our awareness.