Using Plasticity to stop Worries, Obsessions, Compulsions and Bad Habits ![]() Stroke Victims Learn to Move and Speak Again What Neuroplasticity Teaches Us About Sexual Attraction and Love 2 – Building Herself a Better BrainĪ Woman Labeled “Retarded” Discovers How to Heal HerselfĪ Scientist Changes Brains to Sharpen Perception and Memory, Increase Speed of Thought and Heal Learning Problems Rescued by the Man Who Discovered the Plasticity of Our Senses Preface – An Introduction to Neuroplasticity.Nonetheless, three hours was far too little time to get fully into this wonderfully well-researched and well-written book. I’ll definitely be back for a fuller book summary later.įor now, here’s a peek at the contents to remind you (and me) of what’s inside: The physiology and pharmacology of neuroplasticity was my absolute favourite topic at university. If you stop learning, you will lose that ability, along with everything else it enables. If you keep learning – no matter who or how old you are – you will retain the ability to learn. It is this story and a glimpse into just these consequences that Doidge offers us in 11 chapters, two appendices and extensive notes in his excellent book, The Brain That Changes Itself.Ī key takeaway for your day? Your brain is a muscle – exercise and mental activity strengthen and sustain both it and its ongoing ability to learn. What’s more, from blindness and deafness to learning disabilities, autism, strokes, chronic pain and Alzheimer’s, there are few dark corners of mental health into which the science of neuroplasticity doesn’t promise to bring light and hope. We are just now beginning to understand the structures (e.g., neuroglia, hippocampus, basal forebrain), pathways (e.g., LTP, LTD, myelination) and chemicals (e.g., BDNF, oxytocin, dopamine) that enable and regulate neuroplasticity.Īnd yet this understanding has already and will have significant consequences for rethinking many aspects of our lives – from our innate or acquired abilities to our characters and even our sexual preferences. This structural and functional neuroplasticity takes place in every part of the brain and at every level of its organisation – from the activity of its cells and neural networks to the specialisation of its regions and hemispheres.Īnd though heightened in critical periods (e.g., youth, falling in love, beginning parenting) and reduced in others (e.g., after adolescence, in senesce), neuroplasticity never stops – the brain changes constantly, throughout our entire lives. ![]() It continuously adapts to the unique combination of stimuli, thoughts and activities we encounter in life. In fact, the brain is less like a machine, and more like a complex organism. But evidence is increasingly confirming that it’s more malleable than ever imagined. In the past, the brain has been thought of as mostly hard-wired and unchanging. For now, you'll find enough meta-data here to help you decide if it's worth reading the book. Note: This The Brain That Changes Itself summary is a stub.
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