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The study done near your Santa Cruz home, showed that learning a new task causes the brain to create new nerve paths. The lab mice were painstakingly taught a new task. This caused the dendritic spines in their brains to form new synapses (neural pathway).
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Can the Brain Be Rewired?
Researchers at the University of
California campus near your Santa
Cruz home believe so. Until recent
studies at UC Santa Cruz, it was
thought that the brain was only
resilient, malleable, and
morphable in young children.
This malleability, called
neuroplasticity, has been shown to
still exist in adult lab mice and
should transfer over to the brains
of adults who have had brain
injuries, stroke, and other
conditions.
Is it possible to rewire your brain to
learn new tasks? Researchers at
the University of California campus
near your Santa Cruz home
believe so. Until recent studies at
UC Santa Cruz, it was thought that the brain was only resilient, malleable, and morphable to young
children. This malleability, called brain plasticity, has been shown to still exist in adult lab mice and should
transfer over to the brains of adults who have had brain injuries, stroke, and other conditions. If this study
is correct, patients should be able to recover some of the memory loss associated with these conditions.
The study done near your Santa Cruz home, showed that learning a new task causes the brain to create
new nerve paths. The lab mice were painstakingly taught a new task. This caused the dendritic spines in
their brains to form new synapses (neural pathway). What the study found was that once a task was
learned the new synapses became permanent. In addition, as new tasks were learned, the old synapses
stayed intact. It was sort of like proving the old adage that ''once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget
how''. The results of the study by neurobiologist, Yi Zhou, were published in the online journal Nature.
What about the paralyzed stroke patients in hospitals near your Santa Cruz home? Many are able to
recover far more function than with conventional physical therapy alone. This is thanks in part to new
rehabilitation programs that utilize methods based on brain plasticity. Other treatments have been or are
being developed for learning disorders like dyslexia. Still others are researching senility, post-traumatic
stress, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and other dysfunctions of the human mind. Some of
the new techniques are so low-tech that they could classify as arcane. For more information about Santa
Cruz homes please contact Gregg Camp, the author, or visit propertyinsantacruz.com and
cacoastalhome.com.
Some of the researchers on the campus near your Santa Cruz home point to a much more ancient
practice that has always relied on brain plasticity: Tibetan Buddhism. The full-fledged scientific
investigation of Buddhist meditation is the focus of a book titled The Brain That Changes Itself written by
Sharon Begley. The book recounts the story of the collaboration of modern science and Buddhist monks,
including the Dalai Lama. This study involved measurable, replicable effects of Buddhist meditation
practices on the mind and brain. Brain scans reveal that the neural activity of highly trained monks is
incredible when compared to meditation novices especially in the caudate, right insula, and the left
prefrontal cortex. The marks of the meditation remain after meditation.
With the current and past research available to scientists, it is hard to tell what researchers near your
home in Santa Cruz will be able to develop in the way of new therapies. Having proved that brain plasticity
exists in adult brains is only the first step towards helping patients to recover full function of their brains
and perhaps their bodies.
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