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Plasticity and Functional Recovery - Coggle Diagram
Plasticity and Functional Recovery
Plasticity
This is the idea that the brain changes due to the
experiences
that we have
Studies
Maguire
who did the study on taxi drivers (16 make right handed with 1.5+yrs) to see for brain differences using Structural MRIs. 50 non-taxi males control group
Found that taxis had larger posterior hippocampal and the more experience the bigger, proves it
Used a scientific way of studying (MRIs)
Higher internal validity due to sticking with right handed as lateralisation proves that different hands can target different areas.
Less representative as lefties not included, could give different responses.
Population validity as only 16 taxi drivers
Beta bias as only with men
Biologically Reductionist as just focuses on hippocampus and not other biological and cognitive factors.
Causation can't be guaranteed
Davidson
permanent changes to the brain due to extended mediation as found this through studying Buddhists compared to students who gave off less gama waves
Kuhn
found that more grey matter (activity) in those who play 30 mins of video games a day than those who don't.
Functional Recovery
This is the idea that the brain moves a function from a damaged part (due to trauma) to an undamaged part of it.
Studies
Elbert
found that FR was more likely to occur on younger people than it was on elderly people.
Individual differences and so other studies may be invalid if they don't compensate for it.
Tajiri
found that when a rat was given a stem cell after trauma that it developed more neuron-like cells in the area that it had been damaged in, attempted to repair the brain.
Real life applications
Extrapolation issues
Have all lead to good real life applications to neurorehabilitation through things like motor therapy and electrical stimulation to counter damage in the motor and cognitive functions.