Norman Doidge claims that people who have mental limitations are not destined to remain in that way. In his book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, he explains how recent studies and findings have demolished the dogma of the brain being unable to heal itself. Neuroplasticity has embedded the mind into its rightful place, as neuroscientists have shown that the brain is plastic to some extent and capable of healing itself.
Mogilner et al investigated the brains of people who were born with conjoined fingers, functioning in total unison. A few weeks after the patients underwent surgery, their fingers were able to move independently, Mogilner and his colleagues observed the changes that took place in the somatosensory cortex which, is where somatic or bodily sensations happen such as detecting touch are processed. They found that neurons that had been firing together previously were now firing discretely.
The brain simply re-wired its neurons to eliminate a known habit and replaced it with a new habit of using the formerly united fingers as two independent fingers. During recovery from strokes or concussions, the same rewiring takes place in the majority of the cortex. The injured brain re-engineers itself by forming new neural connections with neurons that are close to the damaged area which stimulates other undamaged areas of the brain and compensate for the lost function which is known as Axonal Sprouting.
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