Have you checked your neuroplasticity lately?

Say what? That was my initial reaction when I first saw the word neuroplasticity. Thankfully, it was brought to my ATTENTION (hold that thought) by Allyson Lewis, someone whom I admire greatly.

Allyson is the author of The 7 Minute Solution, The 7 Minute Life™ Daily Planner and The 7 Minute Difference. She has trained thousands of people nationwide and has been a guest on CNN and Bloomberg Information TV. 

Neuroplasticity refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in behavior, environment and neural processes, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury. In recent years, neuroplasticity has replaced the formerly-held position that the brain is a physiologically static organ, and explores how (and in which ways) the brain changes throughout life. 

In the first video, Allyson explains what neuroplasticity is and, more importantly, how you can use this feature of your brain to become happier and more productive.

In the second video, Allyson explains what the 7 Minute Life™ is and how it works. 

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Contrary to common ideas as expressed in the diagram below, brain functions are NOT confined to certain fixed locations... 

Click in image to enlarge

Neuroplasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes due to learning, to large-scale changes involved in cortical remapping in response to injury. The role of neuroplasticity is widely recognized in healthy development, learning, memory, and recovery from brain damage. During most of the 20th century, the general consensus among neuroscientists was that brain structure is relatively immutable after a critical period during early childhood. This belief has been challenged by findings revealing that many aspects of the brain remain plastic even into adulthood.

Hubel and Wiesel had demonstrated that ocular dominance columns in the lowest neocortical visual area, V1, were largely immutable after the critical period in development. Critical periods also were studied with respect to language; the resulting data suggested that sensory pathways were fixed after the critical period. However, studies determined that environmental changes could alter behavior and cognition by modifying connections between existing neurons and via neurogenesis in the hippocampus and other parts of the brain, including the cerebellum.

Decades of research have now shown that substantial changes occur in the lowest neocortical processing areas, and that these changes can profoundly alter the pattern of neuronal activation in response to experience. Neuroscientific research indicates that experience can actually change both the brain's physical structure (anatomy) and functional organization (physiology). Neuroscientists are currently engaged in a reconciliation of critical period studies demonstrating the immutability of the brain after development with the more recent research showing how the brain can, and does, change.

Source: Wikipedia 

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EXPLORE

• 7 Minute Life™ website
• Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain
• The Brain: How The Brain Rewires Itself - TIME
• Neuroscience for Kids - Brain Plasticity 
  
• Beebright Brain Games
• Lumosity: Strength Training for the Brain
  
• Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain