What is neuroplasticity?
Our brain that is between our ears, weighs an average of 1300 to 1400 grams and is the most complex system known in the universe: “The number of neurons in the brain is around 100 billion, at least as many as the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.”
Neuroscience, which is the result of the coordinated work of the fields of psychology, psychiatry, neurology, biology and engineering, is at the forefront of research into the human brain’s decision-making processes, social interaction and emotions. In recent years, neuroscience has gone through a scientific golden age. This is largely due to the incredible discoveries about neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity or brain plasticity is the brain’s natural ability to adapt and change in response to internal and external stimuli. Our brain can change its functions and even its physical structure to react to inputs from events, experiences, thoughts and even human emotions. Previously, scientists assumed that the brain is finite and that we are born with a few billion neurons that do not regenerate. Scientists also believed that these brain cells slowly die over time and that because they are not regenerated, we die too.Luckily, we now know that this is not true.
Recent research has debunked these notions and people have learned that the brain is malleable and changeable.
Today we know that the brain can reorganize neural pathways, make new connections and even regenerate neurons. Neurons are nerve cells that serve as the building blocks of the brain and the entire nervous system. All of this happens naturally and depends on what we do with the gray matter we have as evolving beings. Neuroplasticity is quite remarkable when we think about all the possibilities and changes it can bring to our body and life in general. It is also a fascinating area of research because it allows us to understand how our brain can reorganize itself to create new synaptic pathways.
Everyone is familiar with the idea that if you exercise your body, your muscles and cardiovascular system can improve, making you fitter and better able to exercise. In a nutshell, this is also what your brain does when it is stimulated.
How is Neuroplasticity Different from Physical Strengthening?
Comparing the gains from brain and physical exercise is actually not a very accurate examination. This is because, although the effects are similar in principle, there are some fundamental points where they are very different. The biology of the brain and central nervous system is built to adapt much more efficiently than muscle cells do. This happens in surprisingly complex ways.
Not only does our brain develop new brain cells like muscles – a process called neurogenesis – but our neurons can also structurally reconnect to form new networks for further connections. These networks are vast – there are about 100 trillion connections between our neurons! By increasing myelin, a coating around neuron connections, our brain cells can increase the speed at which they communicate with each other. This increases their electrical efficiency, allowing neuron signals to move at a higher speed across networks. Over time, unused neurons can be cut back through a process called synaptic pruning, optimizing our brain’s resources. In the first years of our lives, our brains undergo an enormous amount of pruning, much like Michelangelo creating a masterpiece from a piece of marble. A recent discovery shows that this process also occurs in old age. The overall activity of our brain can adapt by speeding up or slowing down our brain waves. For example, being mentally alert requires faster brain waves. Research shows that brainwave changes can be sustained over time.
In short, the exercise our brains do has the potential to adapt much more quickly and robustly than the effect on our muscles, and with much longer-lasting changes. In fact, the latest neuroscience research is increasingly showing that conditioning our brains can have transformative effects on human performance and quality of life.
The Brain’s Power to Adapt
Even today, there is an operation called hemispherectomy that baffles neuroscientists. It is performed in life-threatening situations, such as severe epilepsy, where literally half of a person’s brain has to be cut out. In theory, this surgery should be devastating for the brain because each half of the brain manages very different functions, such as controlling one side of the body. However, it turns out that until the teenage years, when half of the brain is removed, the other half has the ability to transform itself into an entirely new left-right brain.
The brain essentially rebuilds itself functionally without any external help, sensing every change and quickly adapting to every situation. Given this incredible adaptation and reorganization of the brain, it seems that patients with brain damage of any kind have a much better chance of living completely normal lives. Exactly how this is possible is still unclear, but the potential implications of neuroplasticity promise neuroscientists an exciting area of research in human evolution for the future.
“The greatest structure in the universe is neither black holes nor celestial dynamics… but the human brain.”
