Brain Plasticity Flashcards
What is neuroplasticity?
Neural growth and learning due to learning new skills or thoughts or processes
The more we repeat something the more the neural connections are strengthened e.g learning,swimming
What is the order of neuroplasticity
Mental activity
Create new connections
Repeat mental activity and then create new connections
What else’s in neuroplasticity
Creating new or developing inhibitory neural pathways
What is an example of plasticity
Maguire et al 2000 taxi drivers
What was Maguire et al 2000 taxi drivers
-group 1 (taxi drivers)had 16 pps and group 2 had 50 pps (non taxi drivers)
-Taxi drivers are required to learn the knowledge including 25,000 street names and on average it takes them three years to learn
-Maguire et al studied taxi drivers to see the changes in the brain detected as a result of the experience of spatial navigation
-Using MRI scans researchers calculated the amount of grey matter in the brain of taxi drivers and then a set of control participants
Results of Maguire et al 2000 taxi drivers
-They found that the posterior hippocampus of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control Pps
-Taxi drivers had a small anterior hippocampus than the control group.
-There was a positive correlation between time spent as a taxi driver and size of the posterior hippocampus
Conclusion of Maguire et al 2000 taxi drivers
This indicates brain plasticity happens and changes due to environmental factors providing it with validity
AO1 Maguire et al 2000 taxi drivers
Maguire et al studied taxi drivers to see the changes in the brain detected as a result of the experience of spatial navigation.there was 16 taxi drivers pps and 50 non taxi driver pps . Using MRI scans researchers calculated the amount of grey matter in the brain of taxi drivers and the set of control participants.They found that the posterior hippocampus of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control Pps they also found out that Taxi drivers had a small anterior hippocampus than the control group. Furthermore ,There was a positive correlation between time spent as a taxi driver and size of the posterior hippocampus
This indicates brain plasticity happens and changes due to environmental factors providing it with validity.
Maguire et al 2006
This time Maguire compared London taxi drivers to London bus drivers
They all had MRI Scans and was given a series of test :
-London landmarks
-distance to places in London
-word list recall
-stress levels (cognitive function)
What was the results of Maguire et al 2006
That same as the previous study : the taxi drivers had a significantly larger posterior hippocampus than the bus driver
The taxi drivers also performed better in London landmark recognition and proximity to locations
What was the conclusion of Maguire et al 2006
Arguably taxi drivers have more to remember in terms of journey routes, landmarks and places on each street which accounts for this
This indicates brain plasticity increases with the more we learn from our environment
What is another example of brain plasticity
Video games
What was the video games study
The video games study was a study where the researchers compared a control group with a video game training group that was trained for two months for at least 30 minutes a day on the game super Mario
What was the results of the video game study
From kuhn et Al study it was found that there was a significant increase in grey matter in various brain areas including the cortex,hippocampus and cerebellum but the increase was not evident in the control group that didn’t play super Mario
What was the conclusion of the video game study
The conclusion is that video game training had resulted in new synaptic connections in brain areas involved in spatial navigation, strategic planning, working memory, and motor performance
