NEUROPLASTICITY — Your Amazing Changing Brain
Our Brains are Highly Organized & Constantly changing — Neuroplastic Networks!
Many people still believe that the brain is divided up into strict regions, with each region being responsible for something different like speech, memory and movement. While this view is not far from the truth it can be a little misleading. If our abilities were restricted to particular parts of the brain then we would be vulnerable to all kinds of misfortune. In fact, although brain functionality does seem to be loosely localized to specific regions it has now become clear in light of the latest scientific findings that the way these regions are interconnected with each other has far more bearing on our abilities than the regions themselves. Car crash victims with brain damage have shown a remarkable ability to compensate for and in some cases fully recover from functional impairment linked to brain injury — It seems that different parts of the brain can pick up different functions as necessary within certain limits. The ability for the brain to remold and reshape itself is called neuroplasticity and the implications of this phenomenon are massive, positive and exciting.
Neuroplasticity
The word “neuroplasticity” can be seen as the combination of two shorter words, “neuro” meaning “to do with nerve cells” and “plastic” meaning “able to change shape or arrangement”. So neuroplasticity is the ability for nerve cells to change shape or arrangement, particularly in the brain.
So what does this changing brain mean? What actually changes? When people talk about neuroplasticity of the brain, what they actually mean at a biological level is that the number, arrangement and connectedness of individual nerve cells in the brain is constantly changing and evolving over time in response to the environment and habitual behavior. To understand this better we need to know a little about nerve cells. Take a look at the picture below:
Structure of a Typical Neuron (peripheral)
I don’t want to go too in depth into Biology here but I would like to point out some useful things. A typical nerve cell, like the one shown above, has two major parts, an Axon that ends in little axon terminals, and a nucleus in a cell body which branches off in finger-like projections called dendrites. Dendrites ‘reach out’ to connect with other nerve cell axon terminals (like hands and fingers reaching out to grasp other hands and fingers) to make long chains of nerve cells. Interestingly, nerve cells conduct chemical-electrical impulses from their dendrites to their axons — this electrical flow can be seen just like electricity/information flowing along nerve cells from one end to another. The impulses move from one neuron to the next interconnected neuron in a chain, and long interconnected chains of neurons can fire in sequence together to create massive global effects in the body. Such chains of linked neuronal firing paths create networks of pathways that collectively give rise to intelligent adaptive behavior. Notice another important feature on the nerve cell’s axon called the myelin sheath. The myelin sheath is a fatty layer that massively increases the speed and efficiency of the electrical impulse as it travels along the nerve cell.
So, just to summarize so far, nerve cells are linked together forming long, complex, interconnected chains or pathways that group up into networks that transmit electro/chemical/information pulses. Myelin, a fatty layer or sheath makes these impulses travel faster and more efficiently. These neuro-nets are constantly in a storm of electrical activity that gives rise to our behavior — such as language processing, visual attention, planning and analysis etc.
Neuroplasticity can now be understood as the brain’s ability to alter the way our neuronal networks are constructed, so, whenever we learn something new the brain makes new neuronal connections and interconnections forming a richer more complex global network. When we lose skills through disuse, nerve cells that were once highly connected slowly start to ‘disengage’ reducing the effectiveness of particular pathways and networks. Even more interesting is that networks or cells that often ‘fire’ impulses together tend to ‘wire’ together — extra myelin sheath is developed on oft- used pathways to make those pathways even more responsive, efficient and active. In other words, the more you do something, the faster and better you get at doing it.
Neuronetworks in the Brain — Hardwired Processing for Habitual Behaviour
Prior to the concept of neuroplasticity, neuroscientists believed that the brain’s structure was fixed by a certain age. Once fixed, any damage or decline was irreversible, leading to inevitable cognitive decline. Psychologists believed something similar with regard to personality, in that personality was also fixed by a certain age and that after this ‘fixation’ people were basically stuck with who they were with no great possibility for change.
Fixed brains and fixed personality type theories were eventually shown to be completely wrong and are regarded as extremely old-fashioned or dubious concepts. Today, most scientists would agree that neuroplasticity is our best working explanatory model for how the brain works, adapts and learns in real time — it seems that our brain changes structure and function in response to what we do and what we encounter on a daily basis.
The real shift in understanding is to realize that our abilities are not a property of something contained within our cells intrinsically, such as DNA or special components or whatever, rather, our abilities are linked to the way nerve cells connect to each other. The network is the key! If a part of your brain usually used for speech processing becomes damaged, the brain can simply create a suitably interconnected network of cells elsewhere to essentially regain the ability once again.
Theory aside, what does neuroplasticity mean for me?
It means a lot! Although children have been found to develop neuro-nets faster than adults or the aged, the ability is never lost at any age — it just takes a little longer. So, that means that you can learn anything at any stage of life, provided you are willing to put in the deliberate practice to form the neuro-net. So yes, grab that instrument you always wanted to learn or take up that additional extra language; your brain is ready to literally change its structure to wire that ability in — you just need to deliberately and effectively practice every day.
Learn Something New! Neuroplasticity means you can, at any age!
People who struggle with negative habits and behavior patterns can literally erase these aspects from their personalities by practicing different habitual behavior. Your personality cannot be a permanent set-in-stone fixed feature if you have a neuroplastic brain.
Doing things on a habitual daily basis rewires your brain with different neuronets — you can literally become a different person, with different skills, attitudes and behavior. What you do on a regular basis will wire your brain to be efficient at doing those things, whether they be positive or negative activities — what you no longer do will eventually ‘un-wire’ in the brain making you less able to do those things. This principle applies even to our thoughts, judgments, cultural conditioning, foods that we eat — it applies to everything we do. Great examples in the scientific literature abound showing that the brain actually changes in shape and structure with behaviour — notable examples of how the brain changes due to regular activity are:
- Meditation (thickened cerebral cortex — a really good thing)
- Brain differences in accomplished musicians (larger and more densely connected fine motor areas in the brain).
Neuroplasticity gives us the power to completely reinvent ourselves however we wish, provided you know what you want to change, keep up your practices diligently and turn away from habitual actions and thoughts that no longer serve you. Your brain has amazing potential, use it consciously and start thriving.
What to Remember
- Nerve cells link together into networks — active neuronets that allow the transfer of electro-chemical impulses to flow.
- Our functional abilities are linked to the functioning of our neural networks and not some intrinsic property of the cells found in some specific region of the brain.
- Since our brains are neuroplastic, our personalities cannot be a fixed or permanent feature — you can change ‘who you are’ and you can learn something new, given enough practice.
- Everything that is done persistently or habitually will wire our brains to become more able to repeat that behavior — this is a neuro-net based principle of learning.
- The old outdated ideas of fixed brains and fixed personality are NOT true and do not serve to empower us as individuals anymore — liberate yourself from these horrible, tyrannical, archaic views.
- Children build neuro-nets faster than adults, but the ability to form new neuro-nets is retained throughout life — you can always learn something new.
- What you do on a daily basis is now really important — consciously use this feature of the brain to live a more fulfilled, limit-free life.
Try to find ways to enhance your neuroplasticity by staying healthy, exercising and taking supplements to boost neurone formation — for more info I highly recommend these three great follow up articles “Hacking the Brain — 13 Supplements to boost cognitive performance” ; “Build your Empire Pt I” and “Meditation — The Real Basics”. Buddha Empire has also got a huge amount of tools and support gear for healthy and wise activities like AUDIO BOOKS, yoga, exercise gear and more — check out our online store today to start learning something new.
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Originally published at buddhaempire.com.
