What is neuroplasticity?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Dr. Lara Boyd assures us that after her lecture our brains will never be the same. In a scientific TEDx talk, she talks about how we change our brains with each skill, explains how and when a person's brains are unique, why some people find it easier than others, and how to make our brains the way you want them.

Knowledge about the brain is advancing at an exciting pace today, and physiotherapist and neuroscientist Lara Boyd is at the forefront of this discovery. Since 2006, she has been with the University of British Columbia, where she is involved in research in neuroscience and motor learning. Since then, she has set up the Brain Behavior Lab, recruited and trained over 40 graduate students, published over 80 articles, and received over $ 5 million in funding.

Lara Boyd's writings lead to the development of new, more effective treatments for people with brain damage, and also find wider application. For example, they explain why some children thrive in traditional education and others do not, how behavior is the main engine of change in the brain, and why there are no neuroplastic pills.

Lara Boyd: This video will change your brain (transcript below):

So how do we learn? And why is it easier for some to study than others? As I said, I am Dr. Lara Boyd doing brain research here at the University of British Columbia, and these questions haunt me.

The study of brain activity opens up prospects both for understanding human physiology and for comprehending the question: what makes us who we are?

This is an amazing time for brain scientists and I bet I have the most interesting job ever. The way we think about the brain changes at a dizzying rate. Many of them turned out to be incorrect or incomplete. Some misconceptions are more obvious, for example, we believed that the brain can only change in childhood, and now it turned out that this is sheer nonsense.

It is also wrong to believe that a person usually uses only some parts of the brain, and when he is not busy with anything, his brain is also inactive. This is also not true at all. It turns out that even when we are resting and not thinking about anything, the brain is highly active. Technologies like MRI have enabled us to make these and many other important discoveries. Perhaps the most exciting, interesting and revolutionary discovery was that every time you acquire new knowledge or skill, you change your brain. This is called neuroplasticity.

A couple of years ago, it was believed that after puberty, the brain can only change for the worse, cells die with age or from damage, for example, from a stroke. However, research has uncovered a startling number of examples of brain transformation in adults. Then it turned out that our behavior affects the changes in the brain. And these changes do not depend on age. Good news. In fact, they occur throughout life and, very importantly, reorganization processes contribute to the recovery of the brain after damage.

Neuroplasticity is the key to all change. What it is? To consolidate the information received, the brain changes in three directions:

1. Chemical. In fact, the work of the brain is the transmission of chemical signals between its cells, called neurons, which triggers a series of reactions. And in order for the knowledge gained to be preserved, the brain increases the number or concentration of chemical signals that neurons exchange. Because these changes occur quickly, they contribute to short-term memory or short-term improvement in motor function.

2. The second way to change the brain to reinforce learning is structural. That is, while learning, the brain changes the connection between neurons, the physical structure of the brain changes, which, of course, takes more time. These changes are associated with long-term memory and long-term improvement in motor skills.

These processes are interconnected. Let me give you an example. We've all learned a new motor skill at some point, like playing the piano or juggling. And during one try it was given to you better and better, and you thought: I did it. And the next time, maybe the next day, all the achievements were lost. Why is that? For a short time, the brain increased the intensity of the exchange of chemical signals, but for some reason these changes did not cause the structural changes necessary for long-term memory. Remember, saving memories into long-term memory is not a momentary process. The short-term outcome is not learning yet. Physical changes reinforce long-term memories. And chemical changes are short-lived.

Structural changes can also lead to the creation of networks that connect different areas of the brain to reinforce learning. Certain areas of the brain that are responsible for specific behavior can grow or change structure. A few examples. People who read Braille have an enlarged sensory area of the brain, which is responsible for the sensitivity of the fingers. If you are right-handed, you have a larger area of the brain responsible for your dominant hand than the one on the right. Research has shown that taxi drivers who fill out a map of London to obtain a license have enlarged brain regions associated with spatial or cartographic memories.

3. And the last way to change the brain to fix information is functional.

The used area of the brain becomes sensitive and easier to use again. And with the appearance of areas with increased excitability in the brain, it already regulates how and when to activate them.

During the learning process, we see how entire blocks of the brain are activated and changed. Thus, chemical, structural and functional changes support neuroplasticity. And they happen all over the brain. They can occur separately, but most often they are interrelated. Together they reinforce the learning outcome, and this happens all the time.

So, I told you how amazingly neuroplastic our brains are. Why is learning something so difficult? Why don't kids always do well in school? Why do we become more forgetful as we get older? And why can't we fully recover from brain damage? What processes help or hinder neuroplasticity? This is what I study. In particular, I am researching how it relates to stroke recovery.

Recently, stroke has moved from third to fourth place in the list of leading causes of death in the United States. Great news, huh? Only, in fact, the number of stroke victims has not decreased. It's just that we have become better able to maintain life after a severe stroke. It turned out to be difficult to help the brain recover from a stroke and, to be honest, we have not been able to develop an effective way of rehabilitation. One thing is certain: stroke is the leading cause of disability in adults around the world.

More and more young people suffer from strokes, which means they live longer with disabilities. And our research shows that the quality of life of Canadians with stroke has declined. Therefore, it is clear that you need to do better to help people recover from a stroke. This is a serious social problem and we cannot solve it.

What can be done? One thing is clear: the main driver of neuroplastic change is your behavior. The problem is that it takes a lot of practice, your activity, to acquire new motor skills or to rebuild old ones. And getting enough active practice is challenging and expensive. So my research approach is to develop therapies that prepare the brain for learning. These include brain stimulation, exercise, and robotics.

Research has made it clear to me that a major obstacle to developing therapies that accelerate recovery from stroke is the diversity of models of neuroplasticity in humans. And this diversity drives me crazy as a researcher, making it extremely difficult to use statistics to test data and ideas. This is why medical research is designed to minimize the difference. My research, however, has revealed this diversity in the most important, most informative data we have collected.

We've learned a lot from studying the brain after a stroke, and I think these lessons are useful in other areas. The first lesson is that the main driver of change in the brain is behavior. And that's why there are no neuroplastic pills. Nothing will help you in learning like practice. So you still have to work. What's more, my research has proven that more difficulty, more stress during practice leads to better learning and greater structural changes in the brain.

The problem is that neuroplasticity is a double-edged sword. It has a positive effect when you learn something new or hone a motor skill, and a negative one when you forget what you knew, addicted to drugs, possibly due to chronic pain. So, the brain is extremely plastic and everything that you do, as well as everything that you don’t do, shapes it both structurally and functionally.

The second lesson we have learned is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to learning, so there is no recipe for how to learn. For example, many believe it takes hours of training to learn a new motor skill. I assure you, it's not that simple. Some will need more practice, while others will need much less.

Working on our plastic brains is too unique a job for there to be a single approach that works for everyone. Realizing this, we came up with the idea of individualized treatment. That is, for optimal results, each person requires their own measures. This thought actually came from the experience of cancer treatment. Then it turned out that genetics is very important for choosing the type of chemotherapy in the treatment of a certain form of cancer. My research has shown that this approach is applicable to stroke recovery as well.

There are certain characteristics of the structure and function of the brain, biomarkers. They are very helpful in helping to tailor the therapy to the individual. The results in my lab show that certain combinations of biomarkers can predict neuroplastic changes and patterns of recovery from stroke, which is not surprising given how complex the human brain is.

However, I also think that this concept can be considered much more broadly. Given the uniqueness of the structure and function of the brain, what we have learned about neuroplasticity after stroke applies to everyone. Behavior in daily life is very important. It affects the brain.

I believe that we should consider not only individual treatment, but also individual training. The uniqueness of the brain manifests itself in a person when he teaches and when he learns. This idea helped us understand why some children thrive in traditional education and others do not. Why languages are easy for some, while others choose any kind of sport and do the best. So when you leave this room today, your brain will no longer be the same as it was the morning you entered. And I think it's just amazing. But the brain of each of you will change in its own way.

Understanding these differences, these personal patterns, this variety of changes will enable significant advances in neuroscience. It will allow you to develop new, more effective measures to help find suitable students and teachers, patients and treatment methods.

And this applies not only to recovery from stroke, but to each of us as a parent, teacher, leader, and also, since you are here today at TEDx, as an eternal learner.

Find out how and what you learn most effectively. Repeat what is good for the brain and discard bad habits and ineffective behaviors. Practice. Learning is the job your brain needs. So the best strategy is different for everyone. You know, even for one person, these strategies can be different with respect to different skills. Learning music can be easy, but snowboarding can be much more difficult.

I hope you leave today with a new understanding of how great your brain is. The world around you constantly shapes you and your plastic brain. Understand that your brain changes because of what you do, what you face, and everything you experience. This may be for the best, but it may be for the worst. So go ahead and make your brain the way you want it today. Many thanks.