In younger patients, the brain has greater plasticity and capability for recovery of functions.
Revealingly, the new gene, called neuregulin-1, turns out to be involved in brain cell "plasticity, " the rewiring process that enables learning.
Plasticity studies have also revealed that the five senses, once thought to be isolated systems in the brain, may be interchangeable.
Thanks to the plasticity of the brain, it may well be that the practice of frequently lying causes underlying structural changes in the brain.
But "because plasticity is competitive, the brain maps for new, exciting images increased at the expense of what had previously attracted them" including girlfriends and wives.
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It is dependent on the plasticity of the brain, and on the fact that experience is as powerful an agent of change as natural selection.
Promising work on brain plasticity is spilling out of research labs.
Brain plasticity, the field that Merzenich helped pioneer, is now one of the hottest areas in medicine, one with hugely positive implications for an aging society.
Forcing both eyes to co-operate increases the level of plasticity or adaptability in the brain and allows the weak eye to relearn how to see, he said.
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The medical profession is unfortunately exceptionally resistant to change, and the demands of physicians for suitable evidence may at times provide cover for its profound lack of plasticity (6).
Last week I attended a coaching conference where Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, UCLA Professor of Psychiatry and author of You Are Not Your Brain, spoke about his research findings on neuro-plasticity.
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At the University of Konstanz in Germany, neuropsychology professor Thomas Elbert uses plasticity-based therapy with stroke patients who have lost the use of a limb or their ability to speak.
His aim is to come up with a treatment combining drugs, electrical stimulation and plasticity-based therapy to help the 700, 000 Americans each year who are left with some permanent impairment from a stroke.
The same study found that MdDS was a disorder of brain plasticity, which means that the neural pathways in the brain are unable to change in response to changes in behaviour or environment.
In other words, it has lost its plasticity.
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While a deeper understanding of neuro-plasticity is extremely relevant for people who have suffered from a stroke or other traumatic brain injury, what has piqued my interest most is its application for those of us whose brains already work perfectly well.
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Important insights to emerge from the panel included the plasticity of the brain in recovering from traumatic injury over time, as well as preliminary studies suggesting that certain genetic mutations may influence susceptibility and recovery after traumatic brain injury as well as early-onset dementia.
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