How Brain Plasticity Affects You And Your Cognition
Brain plasticity has to do with the ability of the brain to alter its structure and functions in response to external changes and stimuli and affects your cognition. Some of these can involve molecular changes such as new neural pathways or disconnected neural pathways. And others can entail other parts of the brain taking over functions which it might otherwise not perform. There are three main forms of brain plasticity which will be described below.
1.Synaptic Plasticity – When new information
is learned or experienced, the brain may create new neural pathways. As
the new information or stimuli is repeated, these neural pathways can be
further enhanced. This helps to cement to new knowledge or information.
It
is said that practice makes perfect and synaptic plasticity is a great
example of that. As the neural connections become better defined, the
information is transmitted faster and more effectively.
This is a
crucial way in which people learn new things and then are able to
retain it over a long period of time. Children grow, develop and learn
many things largely through synaptic plasticity.
2.Neurogenesis –
For many years it was widely believed that brain cells do not multiply.
It was believed that we start out with a fixed number of brain cells
and that as brain cells die, they are not replaced. This was the primary
reason given for brain decline as we age.
However in recent years it has been shown that brain cells can in fact be duplicated which could improve cognition.
It occurs when stem cells divide. One cell is another stem cell and the
other can become a fully functioning neural brain cell.
So for
catastrophic situations like a stroke which can kill many brain cells,
neurogenesis has the ability to regrow new brain cells to replace some
of those lost and help your cognition.
More research is required to better understand this mechanism and perhaps find ways to enhance the process.
3.Functional
Compensatory Plasticity – It has been found that synaptic plasticity
can be less of a factor in older adults than it is in younger people,
especially children. So for many older adults, they may have a more
difficult time learning and retaining new information.
However
there are many older adults who are equally adept at retaining new
information and learning effectively. In some cases it is more effective
than some younger adults. What was found that when older adults process
new information, they not only use the same brain regions as younger
adults but may also involve other areas of the brain which the younger
people may not use.
Since some areas of the brain are not as
effective in synaptic plasticity with older adults, they compensate by
using other areas of the brain. This is also a key element in training
people to overcome disabilities caused through disease or damage to
certain areas of the brain.
Some functions which are normally
associated with one area of the brain can be learned to be done with
other areas of the brain. In this way the brain can be very flexible and
forgiving when it comes to learning and retaining new information.
