[sociate] Our ever-so-plastic brains

  • From: "Jerry Michalski" <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Sociate News" <sociate@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 10:35:44 -0500

Researchers are discovering -- finally -- that brains reconfigure themselves
all the time.

ScienceDaily recently
<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060814133621.htm> reported
that scientists in Lausanne detected neural reconnections on an hour-by-hour
basis. In an interesting twist, my favorite passage in the article draws a
parallel between brain function and social networks:

"The circuitry of the brain is like a social network where neurons are like
people, directly linked to only a few other people," explains [researcher]
Markram. "This finding indicates that the brain is constantly switching
alliances and linking with new circles of "friends" to better process
information." 

Which resonates immediately with  <http://www.danah.org/> danah
<http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/> boyd's nifty new
<http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html> paper on
"friending" in First Monday. We are indeed wiring the global brain these
days.

Neuroplasticity is the central topic of
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060393556/jerrymichalskisr> The
Mind and the Brain, by UCLA
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder> OCD expert
Jeffrey Schwartz and the immensely talented Wall Street Journal science
reporter Sharon Begley,which I've just begun reading. More on that as I
digest it.

We tend to think of the adult brain as pretty much finished. All the wiring
is done, with extensive retraining needed after traumatic brain injuries,
for example. You can't, after all, teach an old dog new tricks, right?

This all echoes my favorite line from the controversial film
<http://www.whatthebleep.com/> What the Bleep Do We Know?: "Neurons that
fire together, wire together." 

Engage in the same thought often enough, and it etches its own neat neural
pathway. That's as true for "I'm worthless and incompetent" as it is for
"I'm skilled and happy." Yow. Makes those crystal-gazing affirmations sound
pretty interesting, doesn't it?

I suspect our socialization processes, fear-based culture and unchallenged
assumptions (that old dog and them new tricks) all contribute to making our
brains far less plastic than they otherwise would be. Change is fun!



posted by Jerry at
<http://www.sociate.com/blog/archives/2006_12_01_archive.html#11655027626740
3474> 6:35 AM

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