Neuroplasticity
Traditionally, western medicine has assumed that the brain changes very little after childhood and that it is difficult or impossible to repair a damaged brain. It compares the brain to a computer that can’t change its programming, or recover deleted data. Neuroplasticity takes the opposite view:
‘[Doidge]…outlines the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Through numerous case studies, he describes stroke victims who have learned to move and speak again, senior citizens who have sharpened their memories, and children who have raised their IQs and overcome learning disabilities, among others. The science, he predicts, will have ramifications for professionals in many fields, but especially for teachers of all types.2
To think of the brain as a ‘plastic’ or flexible organ allows the possibility that it can change, grow and repair itself through carefully designed exercises. An increasing number of researchers now accept this view.
Neuroplasticity is also called ‘brain plasticity’ or ‘brain malleability’.