Plasticity is the ability of a solid material to deform secondary to external stress and retain its functionality. Just like when you throw a plastic ball. It may deform as it hits the floor, but as it regains its shape in a microsecond, it bounces back in its original form.
Before 1950, there was no mention of neuroplasticity in any books. It was then believed that the brain does not change throughout life. If a trauma or disease causes damage to the brain, then that is it.
Not so anymore, brain science (neuroscience) has evolved, and it has been proven that the brain is plastic such that it can adapt and bounce back from injury, and it can be changed by what we eat and do.
Neuroplasticity has the same meaning as brain plasticity, neuroelasticity, and neural plasticity. Neuroplasticity is essential for growth, acquisition of new skills, learning, memory, and survival. Knowledge about neuroplasticity is increasing every day concerning its application for health and medicine. This article is a short summary of the different mechanisms of neuroplasticity.
Mechanisms of Neuroplasticity
Cortical Remapping
The different lobes of the brain supply a specific part of the body. There is a brain map where you can see the different parts of the body that a section of the brain supplies.
If a part of the brain loses its function like in an amputation of a leg, that part that is responsible for that leg gets taken over by nearby neurons, and the brain map is changed. The principles are useful for the treatment of phantom limb pain and post-stroke rehabilitation
Synaptic Plasticity
Brain cells (neurons) have a tail (axon) that connects to other neurons. That connection is called a synapse. One neuron can talk with several thousand neurons. To communicate, they send a message in the form of a chemical (neurotransmitter). The neurotransmitter is received by a receptor and interprets the signal. The signal is either a “yes” (excitatory) or “no” (inhibitory). Since it happens in the brain, the proper terminology is neuroexcitatory and neuroinhibitory.
Synaptic plasticity happens in learning and memory. By changing the number of neurotransmitters and the receptors, the synapse can get stronger or weaker over time.
Non-Synaptic Plasticity
Non -synaptic plasticity is the increase in the excitability of the whole neuron in contrast to the synaptic plasticity wherein only the synapse is changed. The neuron can be more excitable or more inhibited. This plasticity is also involved in learning and memory.
Activity-Dependent Neuroplasticity
This is the type of plasticity that is dependent on the activity and experience of the person. This is the basis for learning new physical skills like playing a musical instrument, learning a new language, memory retention, comprehension, and speech.
If someone wants to learn how to play the guitar, in every practice, a chain of molecular events happens that lead to improves the connections between the synapses. With time, all the interconnected neural pathways needed from reading and comprehending the music, to the movement of the right hand that strums the guitar strings and the left fingers that plays the chords, become more and more efficient in transmission.
The knowledge about neuroplasticity is increasing every day, and it opens new possibilities in medicine.
Knowing that the brain is malleable provides a greater understanding of what we can do to preserve and improve its function.
A future article will talk about stem cells and the brain.
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Image Credits:
Motor Homunculus By OpenStax College – Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site. http://cnx.org/content/col11496/1.6/, Jun 19, 2013., CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30148008
Synapse By user: Looie496 created the file, US National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging created original – http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/alzheimers-disease-unraveling-mystery/preface, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8882110
Neuron interconnections Hagmann P, Cammoun L, Gigandet X, Meuli R, Honey CJ, Wedeen VJ, Sporns O
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