brain plasiticty AO1

Question 1

what does brain plasticity enable us to do?

Answer 1

brain plasticity enables us to learn and adapt when we experience new things and it enables us to recover from brain damage.

Question 2

what is synapse pruning?

Answer 2

• during infancy, the brain experiences a rapid growth in the number of synaptic connections it has (about 15,000 per neuron at 2-3 years of age).
• as we age, rarely-used connections are deleted and frequently-used connections are strengthened. this is known as synapse pruning.

Question 3

what does synaptic pruning enable?

Answer 3

synaptic pruning enables lifelong plasticity where new neural connections are formed in response to new demands on the brain.

Question 4

what did maguire et al study?

Answer 4

the brains of london taxi drivers.

Question 5

what did maguire find in the taxi drivers brain?

Answer 5

maguire found significantly more volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus than in a matched control group.

Question 6

what is the posterior hippocampus associated with?

Answer 6

the posterior hippocampus is associated with the development of spatial and navigational skills in humans and other animals.

Question 7

as part of their training, what are the taxi drivers made to do?

Answer 7

as part of their training, london taxi drivers must take a complex test called ‘the knowledge’ which assesses their recall of the city streets and possible routes.

Question 8

what did maguire et al find?

Answer 8

• maguire et al found that this learning experience alters the structure of the taxi driver’s brains.
• they also found that the longer the taxi drivers had been in the job, the more pronounced the structural difference (positive correlation)