Using neuroplasticity to better ourselves
What the neuroplasticity revolution is saying is that if you look at the lavishly illustrated brain books, where one region is zoned for lets say, vision and another region is zoned for moving your left index finger, in other words, all of these little and large regions have specific functions, that's what it now turns out can be overturned or overruled as it were.
Depending on the experiences you have, the life you lead, that sort of new fangled phrenology indeed can be overwritten. It can be erased. New functions can be assigned to existing structures and similarly if a particular circuit is overactive or underactive, that too is amenable to change. And in many cases if those circuits had been the basis for, lets say, mental illness.
Having personally had some issues in the past with anxiety, I feel extremely pleased to know that my brain is not locked into some type of sub-optimal architecture that I cannot change through brain exercises.
Depending on the experiences you have, the life you lead, that sort of new fangled phrenology indeed can be overwritten. It can be erased. New functions can be assigned to existing structures and similarly if a particular circuit is overactive or underactive, that too is amenable to change. And in many cases if those circuits had been the basis for, lets say, mental illness.
Having personally had some issues in the past with anxiety, I feel extremely pleased to know that my brain is not locked into some type of sub-optimal architecture that I cannot change through brain exercises.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Anders Claassens on -
"We are prisoners of our natural brains. As children we grow, and new programs are layered down, set into the jelly of our brains. When we are young we write many of these programs in order to adapt to a bizarre and often dangerous environment. And then we grow some more. We mature. We find our places in our cities, in our societies, in ourselves. We form hypotheses as to the nature of things. These hypotheses shape us in turn, and yet more programs are written until we attain a certain level of competence and mastery, even of comfort, with our universe. Because our programs have allowed us this mastery, however limited, we become comfortable in ourselves, as well. And then there is no need for new programs, no need to erase or edit the old. We even forget that we were once able to program ourselves. Our brains grow opaque to new thoughts, as rigid as glass, and our programs are frozen for life, hardwired, so to speak, within our hardened brains."
"We should all know the code of our programs, otherwise we can never be free."
"If I could find courage, I wondered, what would I see? Would I be ashamed of the arrangement of my programs - of my very self - beyond my control? Ah, but what if I could write new metaprograms, controlling this arrangement of programs? Then I might one day attain the uniqueness and value I found so lacking in myself and the rest of my race; as an artist composes a tone poem, I could create myself and call into being wonderful new programs which had never existed within the rippling tides of the universe. Then I would be free at last, and the flame would burn like star fire; then I would be something new, as new to myself as the morning sun is to a newborn child."
- Quotes by David Zindell -
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Permalink Reply by Aaron Claassens on -
Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich looks at one of the secrets of the brain's incredible power: its ability to actively re-wire itself. He's researching ways to harness the brain's plasticity to enhance our skills and recover lost function.
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Permalink Reply by Aaron Claassens on
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"Neuroscientist following Descartes, basically focused more on the brain which was seen to be machine-like and we lost interest for several hundred years in the notion of the mind and soul"
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© 2012 Created by Aaron Claassens.
