Kolb - Factors Influencing Cerebral Plasticity

Question 1

2 Obstacles to developing evidence-based therapies for recovery of function after
cerebral injury

Answer 1

No generally accepted definition of what constitutes “recovery”: goals of treatment plans are unclear and dependent on researcher to choose benchmark

Organization of brain is not static: The brain has capacity to alter its structure and function interaction to environmental diversity as well as perturbations including injury. Therefore, we cannot tell if improvements are due to therapy or from environment

Question 2

3 General principles of plasticity in normal brain

Answer 2

Changes in brain shown at many levels of analysis

The brain is altered by surprisingly wide variety of experiences througout the lifespan

Different measures of neuronal change independently

Question 3

Changes in the brain can be shown at many levels of analysis

Answer 3

Changes may be inferred from global measures of brain activity, such as in various forms of in vivo imaging, but such changes are far removed from the molecular processes that drive them

Question 4

The brain is altered by a surprising wide variety of experiences throughout the lifespan

Answer 4

brain is changed by virtually any experiences. biggest changes come from drugs such as psychomotor stimulants or administration of neurotrophic factors

Question 5

Neuronal change independent and in opposite directions

Answer 5

ex. changes in spine density does not imply anything about dendritic length and vice versa