the brain that heals itself norman doidge

Yet, ‘brain training’ has been the subject of much controversy, with many neuroscientists condemning it as unproven and based on an exaggerated understanding of the degree of plasticity the human brain possesses (e.g. A range of devices, exercises and programmes continue to be promoted as a means of improving memory, enhancing cognition, tackling psychiatric disorders, and combating neurodegeneration ( Brenninkmeijer, 2010). One much discussed technique relating to the idea that the structure and/or function of the brain is changeable is ‘brain training’ this is generally understood as mental exercises that are regarded by some as being able to improve brain functioning. Within (at least) Europe and North America, a plethora of books, media articles, blogs and other cultural products today draw explicitly or indirectly on the new discourses of brain plasticity in their exhortations to ‘use it or lose it’ and ‘keep your brain fit’. This has led to speculation from a range of communities about the degree to which ‘traditional’ distinctions between nature and nurture are dissolving, and new possibilities for both therapy and enhancement opening up ( Rubin, 2009).

Within narratives of plasticity, the brain and its environment are taken to mutually shape each other both in childhood and across adult life. Yet, there is a growing scientific consensus that plasticity is a widespread and important feature of the human brain. Regarded by some as “a conceptual event (indeed, a conceptual scandal)” ( Rees, 2010: 153), the degree to which all areas of the brain can be thought of as plastic is still contentious. Today, studies have been regarded as demonstrating neurogenesis – the growth of new neurones – in animals and adult humans (see Gage, 2002 and references therein). The idea that the developing brain in childhood is malleable or plastic has a long history within the neurosciences. The plastic brain is thus framed as a dynamic network, the very nature of which is moulded through subjective experience. Whilst scientific discourse is divergent in its deployment of ‘plasticity’, this term can be broadly understood as the potential for “changes in the input of any neural system, or in the targets or demands of its efferent connections, lead to system reorganization that might be demonstrable at the level of behavior, anatomy, and physiology and down to the cellular and molecular levels” ( Pascual-Leone et al., 2005: 377–378). Over the last decade, the concept of neuro- or brain ‘plasticity’ has become increasingly resonant in international neuroscience research.

The brain that heals itself norman doidge