How Neuroplasticity Affects Our Lives and Culture

Neuroplasticity is a fairly new scientific concept; before it was widely accepted, people used to believe that, after the initial childhood development period, a person’s brain was permanently fixed. The idea that the brain could change after adulthood was first introduced by “father of neuroscience” Santiago Ramón y Cajaltalked in the early 1900s, and the term neuroplasticity wasn’t widely used until the 1960s. The everyday effects of neuroplasticity, however, are neither novel nor mysterious, and they affect our lives and culture in many ways.

Learning a new language, for example, is a process that causes both anatomical and functional neural pattern changes in the brain. The same is true of learning to play a musical instrument and navigate a new environment are similar examples - in fact, taxi drivers in London (who are required to take 3-4 years of training to learn the city) have been found to have significantly increased gray matter volume in the bilateral posterior hippocampus as compared to control subjects.

But learning new skills isn’t the only benefit that neuroplasticity brings to our culture. We are now finding that the brain’s ability to change means that it can heal after injury due to trauma or a stroke. It also means that children and adults with learning disabilities have the opportunity to improve cognitive function over time. With determination, support, and the proper cognitive exercises, neuroplasticity gives people the world over hope for an improved future.

The effects of neuroplasticity are all around us. From essential healing to recreational pursuits, neuroplasticity is the feature of the brain which allows us to change, grow, and improve - no matter how old we are. It gives us the opportunity to envision a different reality, the motivation to buckle down and strive towards new abilities, and the conviction required to overcome setbacks like injury or disability that might have seemed permanent not long ago.