How The Brain Rewires Itself
Posted on January 24, 2007 Comments (2)
The finding was in line with a growing number of discoveries at the time showing that greater use of a particular muscle causes the brain to devote more cortical real estate to it. But Pascual-Leone did not stop there. He extended the experiment by having another group of volunteers merely think about practicing the piano exercise. They played the simple piece of music in their head, holding their hands still while imagining how they would move their fingers. Then they too sat beneath the TMS coil.
When the scientists compared the TMS data on the two groups–those who actually tickled the ivories and those who only imagined doing so–they glimpsed a revolutionary idea about the brain: the ability of mere thought to alter the physical structure and function of our gray matter.
Related: Feed your Newborn Neurons – Brain Research on Sea Slugs – How the Brain Resolves Sight – Oliver Sacks podcast
Posted by curiouscat
Categories: Health Care, Life Science, Research, Students
Tags: brain, human health, medical research
Categories: Health Care, Life Science, Research, Students
Tags: brain, human health, medical research
2 Responses to “How The Brain Rewires Itself”
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May 8th, 2008 @ 11:15 pm
The finding was in line with a growing number of discoveries at the time showing that greater use of a particular muscle causes the brain to devote more cortical real estate to it…
September 30th, 2008 @ 8:16 am
“Around 15 years ago, researchers discovered that the adult rodent brain contains discrete populations of stem cells which continue to divide and produce new cells throughout life…”