Bible Science... |
The Brain that Re-maps Itself |
Norman Doidge M. D. |
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A BRAIN'S 'MAP' WAS ONCE THOUGHT to be 'hardwired' after a child's formative years were past. This idea -- that different parts of the brain do different things -- is called localization of function. SCIENTISTS HOLDING TO THIS VIEW were known as "localizationists," defending the idea that the adult brain map is hardwired by the end of infancy to perform functions in fixed locations. Among the early pioneers of this field of study in the 1930's was a neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield. WHAT WAS LEARNED BACK THEN was that normally, when one's hand is touched, an electrical signal passes to the spinal cord and up to the brain, where it turns on cells in the map that make the hand feel touched. PENFIELD FOUND HE COULD ALSO make the patient feel his hand was touched by turning on the hand area of the brain map electrically. When he stimulated another part of the map, the patient might feel his arm being touched; another part, his face. Thus, he was able to show where on the brain's sensory map all parts of the body's surface were represented. HE DID THE SAME FOR THE MOTOR MAP -- the part of the brain that controls movement. By touching different parts of this map, he could trigger movements in a patient's leg, arm, face, and other muscles. ONE OF THE GREAT DISCOVERIES Penfield made was that sensory and motor brain maps, like geographical maps, are topographical, meaning that areas adjacent to each other on the body's surface are generally adjacent to each other on the brain maps. He also discovered that when he touched certain parts of the brain, he triggered long-lost childhood memories or dreamlike scenes-which implied that higher mental activities were also mapped in the brain.SINCE THAT TIME a newer study -- called Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity -- has introduced the idea that the brain has the ability to CHANGE (re-Map itself) throughout one's lifetime. THE HUMAN BRAIN has the amazing ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells (neurons). A LEADING FIGURE EXPERIMENTING in this new field was Dr. Michael Merzenich. One of his more famous experiments put brain plasticity on the map (pun intended). First, he mapped a monkey's hand map in the brain. Then he amputated the monkey's middle finger. After a number of months he remapped the monkey and found that the brain map for the amputated finger had disappeared and that the maps for the adjacent fingers had grown into the space that had originally mapped for the middle finger.HERE WAS THE CLEAREST POSSIBLE DEMONSTRATION that brain maps are dynamic, that there is a competition for cortical real estate, and that brain resources are allocated according to the principle of use it or lose it. |
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