This past week I've been reading a book by Wall Street Journal science correspondent Sharon Begley entitled, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. It's a fascinating work from 2006 which examines recent discoveries in neuroscience that point to the ability of the brain to change structurally in response to both outside stimulation and conscious thought.
I'm about half-way through the work, yet already Begley has described two series of experiments which provide evidence that the brain changes structurally in response to internal and external stimuli. As the book notes, up until about twenty or thirty years ago neuroscientists believed that the brain was absolutely fixed after a certain point early in childhood. Yet new research suggests otherwise. For example, people born blind show pronouced activity in their visual cortex while reading braile. When a magnetic device is used to tempoarily disable the visual cortex, the subject suddenly finds it difficult to read the raised dots which constitute the braile alphabet. Lacking visual stimuli, the visual cortex (comprising 35% of the brain) changed function and became active in the subject's language ability. Similar tendencies were uncovered in the auditory cortex of subjects born deaf, though rather than langauge ability, this brain structure improved the deaf person's peripheral vision. In short, contrary to the theory that the brain is fixed from childhood on, more recent research suggests that specific brain structures are capable of significant adaptation due to genetically unexpected stimulation (or lack thereof).
Yet external stimuli aren't the only ways in which the brain can become structurally altered. As it turns out, one's thoughts can also affect the brain. Experiments discussed in the book have shown that thearpies which assist a person to appraise of their thoughts differently can actually change activity of different brain structures over time. Conditions such as OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and chronic depression have been treated with such thearpies with great success, and the evidence suggests that the chances of relaspe with these conditions is significantly lower with thearpy compared to seretonin uptaking inhibitors. In short, what's on your mind can profoundly affect your brain, which you can use seemingly for your own benefit or your own misfortune.
If this kind of stuff interests you, then give the book a read, it's very good. The implications of the reseach it discusses could be quite important for people of all sorts, especially those suffering from the ill-effects of modern technology. But we shall see.
Happy Saturday friends :)
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