Extreme neuroplasticity

All changes in behaviour, picking up new languages, new perspectives, new heuristics - all of it continuously changes the brain. Any learning and unlearning is dependent on the plasticity of the brain, to wire and rewire neural connections and neural networks based on “bottom up” sensations or “top-down” directives.

The brain does all of that on autopilot. Each activity with the outside world changes the neural map: from strengthening certain pathways to reducing or even removing others.

Some time ago, I started to dig deeper into “brain plasticity”, which is defined as

Did you know that by the age of two, toddlers have twice as many neurons as adults? Over time, these neurons are trimmed down because not all are needed. Certain pathways strengthen to form the underlying “highways” for decision-making heuristics. New pathways are created as we are confronted with new technologies, new cultures and new ideas.

One question I asked myself is: what are the extremes? Where do we breach the possibilities of the brain to be able to cope with plasticity?

Here are some stories I found. I will let you make up your mind about “limitations”.

Dr. Joe Dispenza

In 1986, Dr. Joe Dispenza, then 24 years old, took part in a triathlon in the US. During the cycling part of the triathlon, Mr. Dispenza got run over by a truck at 55mph. Despite the doctors telling him to have a complicated and risky operation with a rather uncertain outcome, he decided against it. He was told he might not be able to walk again. He persisted in going through other treatments.

He recovered through long and tedious physical and mental training.

There is a longer conversation with him and Mr. Jay Jetty.

Mora Leeb

Mora Leeb is a teenager from the UK. Suddenly, Mora developed seizures as a baby. Upon scans, doctors found that the left part of her brain had basically died. After a hemispherectomy, which disconnects the left and the right part of the brain from each other, and the removal of the left brain, Mora had to relearn almost everything from scratch. But 15 years later, she has the same capabilities and abilities as her peers.

The brain managed to learn all important functions required to have live a normal life with only half the compute power.

No brain man

Around 2007, a man in France was treated for some weakness in his left leg. After more detailed CT and fMRI scans, the doctors found that the man had only 10% of a normal-sized brain.

Until this discovery, the then 44-years-old man lived a normal life, with normal IQ results and nobody would have thought that inside his skull there was almost no brain. You can read more about this story here in the Lancet and here. This is also a great argument against the theory that only specific brain regions can carry out specific functions. If that was the case, the Frenchman would have lived a life as a lizard more than a human.

Limits?

This begs many questions:

1. Are we actually fully utilizing our brains? If we know that 50% or 10% are enough to live a normal life, what could we really do with if we’d all in on 100%?

2. How much power is in will-power? I find the story about Dr. Dispenza insofar interesting, as that will power, thoughts and mental focus allowed him to regain the ability to walk. Yes, I was scptical about it in the beginning, as it sounded like magic. But maybe there is more “magic” in life than we all believe.

3. Can these examples (and there are more) perhaps wake some of us “couch-potato-no-I-can-not” people up? Having a brain to think about the limitations we could have, might have, is then not so useful after all. But the above examples are just so powerful to show the immense learning and relearning ability.

4. How can neuroplasticity be helpful as treatments for ADHD, autism, PTSD and other neurological disorders?

A lifetime of plasticity?

Our brain can change and adapt, especially at a young age. Learning complex new behaviours at scale, like walking or talking, becomes increasingly more difficult to (re)learn the older you get.

Difficult does not mean impossible, as the story of Jill Bolte Taylor shows. She had a stroke at the age of 35, which forced her to learn basic capabilities like language to movement from scratch. She managed, but lost a lot of her memories of before the stroke.

Phineas Gage had a serious accident in 1848. A pole pierced through his head after it has been set off by explosives. He survived, but as the pole injured his left eye and left a hole in his brain. His friends and co-workers documented changes post recovery. His lost his ability to control his tamper, he started to swear, drink and, later in life developed seizures.

I don’t know about you, but I was surprised about the immense capabilities of our brain to improve, reset, relearn. Nature really did a good job to provide us with a biodevice that is flexible in so many ways.

Just let this sink in a little bit.

Alex