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- Herausgeber: Payhip
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
This e-book covers everything you wanted to know about neuroplasticy. All the new data that is available, all the new research covering the theme of brain plasticity. The book starts with general anatomy and physiology needed to understand the information in the book. The next chapter is about history and you would be surprised to see that therm neuroplasticity is not new! What is new is the research being more widespread. Book also contains information about brain damage, mental health and addictions. There are really interesting findings in the fields of learning and memory, those are the biggest chapters! Also if you want to know more about habits that influence central nervous system - both bad and good things, there is all the new data in it. Book includes interesting facts that will convince you to take a better care about your brain. It is never too late to start working in yourself and improving yourself.
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Seitenzahl: 41
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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1. Definition
Neuroplasticity or brain plasticity stands for the brains ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. The term is derived from two words: Neuron and Plastic.
Neuron is a nerve cell in our brain and it consists of stoma (or the body), an axon and dendrites. Neuron cells are electrically excited cells that process and transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. The cells are connected with each other by synapses, which transmit chemical signals and allow neurons to form neural networks. All neurons are electrically excitable. They maintain voltage gradients across their membranes by ion channels and ion pumps. What that means is that when there is a high voltage change, ion pumps generate action potential and the information travels through network of neurons, from one cell to another.
Now, how does action potential work? When there is a signal from another neuron, there is a polarity change across the membrane. Polarity changes due to sodium and potassium ions and ion pumps that open and close as the membrane reaches the threshold potential. What happens is that sodium ions enter the membrane, causing depolarization and when potassium channels open, potassium ions travel out of the axon and repolarization accurse. This creates the change in polarity and allows an impulse to travel through the axon, to the axon terminal where it passes the signal to other neurons.
There are different types of neural cells, like sensory neurons, motor neurons and interneurons and they are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral ganglia and all together they form the nervous system.
The word “Plastic” doesn’t mean it has plastic consistency as one my think but it refers to the ability of change. Plastic stands for mold, modify or sculpt. Brain has an ability to modify its structure and function, caused by bodily and environmental changes.
To understand the next chapters there is also some brain anatomy you should know about. Brain is the center of nervous system. It contains about a 100 billion neurons! And some glia cells but I will not give you too much information yet. So, the brain has white matter and grey matter, the difference is not just in color but also in its structure and function. Grey matter mostly stands for nucleus or I should say the body of cells and the white matter is mostly made of axons and glial cells. Meaning, white matter modulates the distribution of action potentials and is enabling communication and coordination between different brain regions whilst the gray matter is mostly associated with processing and cognition.
The brain has two hemispheres that are connected by corpus callosum which is the largest white matter in the brain. Important information is that the brain is divided in 4 lobes on each side. Frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobe:
These lobes are divided by gyri and sulci, those are the cortical folds of the cortex and these wrinkles exist to create a bigger surface. In some literature they count insula as an additional lobe. But that doesn’t matter now. Here are some basic functions of individual lobes:
Frontal lobe is associated with planning, reasoning, parts of speech, movements, emotions and problem solving
Parietal lobe is associated with orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli and movement
Occipital lobe is associated with visual processing and
Temporal lobe is associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory and speech
I should also give you some information about the complex limbic system. Limbic system is responsible for behavior, memory, emotions and olfaction. All in all it is believed to have an important role for our emotional life and the formation of memories. There are two parts of the system that will be mentioned in this book. The first one is hippocampus. Hippocampus is a horseshoes shaped paired structure. It is located in the temporal lobe and its function is connected with memory, emotional response, spatial orientation and navigation. Hippocampus is communicating with amygdala, almond shaped structure also located in the temporal lobe. Its functions are referred to memory modulation, emotional learning, hormonal secretions, arousal and autonomic response to fear.
The structure of the nervous system is complex and so is its function. Modern technology is helping us in discovery of its potential, but there is still a lot that has been unrevealed and unexplained.
