Plasticity & Functional Recovery of the Brain After Trauma
Plasticity
- The brain adapts both its structure and function in response to the environment
- This changes could be due to learning a new cognitive process, needing to learn a new skill or a sudden trauma, which causes damage to the brain
Functional recovery
- Healthy areas of the brain compensating for the lost or damaged areas of the brain is called functional reorganisation
- Functions are now performed by different areas which are still healthy
- Synaptic pruning allows the brain to be more efficient, synapses that are used frequently grown stronger over time but synapses that are not used, have the connections lost
- This allows the brain to be a more efficient communication tool
Maguire et al.
- Conducted structural MRI scans of 16 male London taxi drivers were compared with 16 male matched (same age, education etc) non taxi drivers
- Found the posterior hippocampi in the London taxi drivers were significantly larger that the control group of non taxi drivers
- They also found that the size of the posterior hippocampi was reflective on how long they had been a taxi driver
- Maguire et al's research suggests the brain is plastic and able to configure itself to its environment and psychological demands
Danielli et al.
- Supports Maguire's findings
- Case study of EB who was 14
- At 2 years old, EB had to have a hemispherectomy on the left side of his brain to remove a tumour
- His language centres were removed, including the Brocca and Wernicke areas
- Immediately after surgery, EB had lost all language function, however, after two years EB had recovered his language ability, even without his left hemisphere
- This supports brain plasticity, showing the brain can adapt and recover after trauma, especially early on in life
- Researchers completed fMRI scans and found that the rights hemisphere acted as if it was the left hemisphere (like blueprint) for language
Evaluation Points
- It allows scientists to study the brain further
- It has practical application, used in the real world and supports patients with changes or damage to their brain
- Mathias (2015), stated that education level and IQ will effect how well the brain copes and changes with trauma
