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- The human brain can change itself

- Brain anatomy is not fixed

- After childhood the brain can still change

healthy brain can be improved or preserved through activity or mental exercise

brain can change and grow

Since the brain can be changed, human nature, which emerges from it, seemed necessarily changeable and alterable as well.

Scientist showed that the brain changed its very structure with each different activity it performed, perfecting its circuits so it was better suited to the task at hand.If certain "parts" failed,then other parts could sometimes take over.

Neuro is for "neuron," the nerve cells in our brains and nervous systems. Plastic is for "changeable, malleable, modifiable."

One of these scientists even showed that thinking, learning, and acting can turnour genes on or off, thus shaping our brain anatomy and our behavior

saw people rewire their brains with their thoughts, to cure previously incurable

obsessions and traumas.

The idea that the brain can change its own structureand function through thought and activity

self-changing brain and with the realization that the architecture of the braindiffers from one person to the next and that it changes in the course of our individual lives

neuroplasticity isn't all good news; it renders ourbrains not only more resourceful but also more vulnerableto outside influences

Neuroplasticity has the power toproduce more flexible but also more rigid behaviorsaphenomenon I call "the plastic paradox

Ironically, some of our most stubborn habits and disorders are products of our plasticity

Once a particular plastic change occurs in the brain and becomes well established, it can prevent other changes from occurring. It is by understanding both thepositive and negative effects of plasticity that we can truly understand the extent of human possibilities

The neuroplastic revolution has implications for, among other things, our unders

tanding of how love, sex, grief, relationships,learning, addictions, culture, technology, and psychotherapies change our brains------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1:----------

A brain system ismade of many neuronal pathways, or neurons that areconnected to one another and working together. Ifcertain key pathways are blocked, then the brain uses

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older pathways to go around them. "I look at it this way,"says Bach-y-Rita. "If you are driving from here toMilwaukee, and the main bridge goes out, first you areparalyzed. Then you take old secondary roads throughthe farmland. Then, as you use these roads more, youfind shorter paths to use to get where you want to go,and you start to get there faster." These "secondary"neural pathways are "unmasked," or exposed, and, withuse, strengthened. This "unmasking" is generally thoughtto be one of the main ways the plastic brain reorganizesitself.

"Are eyes necessary for vision, or ears forhearing, tongues for tasting, noses for smelling?"We see with our brains, not with our eyes.our eyes merely sense changes in light energy; it is our brains thatperceive and hence seeWe have senses we don't know we haveuntil we lose them

How a sensation enters the brain is not important toBach-y-Rita. ' When a blind man uses a cane, he sweepsit back and forth, and has only one point, the tip, feedinghim information through the skin receptors in the hand,Yet this sweeping allows him to sort out where thedoorjamb is, or the chair, or distinguish a foot when hehits it, because it will give a little. Then he uses this

information to guide himself to the chair to sit down.Though his hand sensors are where he gets theinformation and where the cane 'interfaces' with him,what he subjectively perceives is not the cane's pressureon his hand but the layout of the room: chairs, walls, feet,the three-dimensional space. The actual receptor surfacein the hand becomes merely a relay for information, adata port(new data port, or way of getting sensations to the brain). The receptor surface loses its identity in theprocess,"

It's one thing to find a new data port, or way ofgetting sensations to the brain. But it's another for the

brain to decode these skin sensations and turn them intopictures. To do that, the brain has to learn somethingnew, and the part of the brain devoted to processingtouch has to adapt to the new signals. This adaptabilityimplies that the brain is plastic in the sense that it canreorganize its sensory-perceptual system.