Your brain will not be the same after reading this post

How do we learn? Why some of us are learning quicker than others?

In her Ted Talk Dr. Lara Boyd talks about neuroplasticity – the way we change our brains every time we learn a new thing or skill.
The more we study our brains, the more hypothesis appear. Many of them turn into myths. In the past it was thought that after about puberty, the brain changes only in negative ways. Recent researches show us that all of our behaviors change our brain.

But how exactly that happens?

According to Dr. Lara Boyd and her colleagues, our brain can change in three very basic ways to support our cognitive processes.

On chemical level your brain can increase the amount of the concentrations of the chemical signaling that’s taking place between neurons. this kind of change could happen rapidly and therefore it supports our short term memory or the short term improvement in the performance of a motor skill.

During learning, the brain can also change the connections between neurons. This means that the physical structure of the brain is actually changing so this takes a bit more time and its related to the long term memory, the long term improvement in a motor skill.

The last way that the brain can change is by altering its function. As you use a brain region it becomes more and more excitable and easy to use again. And as your brain has these areas that increase their excitability the brain shifts how and when they are activated. With learning we see that whole networks of brain activity are shifting and changing.
These structural changes can lead to integrated networks of brain regions that function together to support learning. And it can also lead to certain brain regions that are important for very specific behaviors to change your structure or to enlarge.

So if all of this is true, why don’t we learn anything we want easily in short periods of time? Why do we forget even simple things? Are there any limitations of the neuroplasticity?

First of all, the shaping of our brains is very unique. Secondly, that shaping works bothways. It could be positive, when you learn something but it could also be negative. If you forget something you once knew or you become addicted to some substances like drugs.
In other words being tremendously plastic, your brain could be shaped both structurally and functionally by everything you do, but also by everything that you don’t do.

So after reading this post, you learned something new about your brain, meaning that these processes happened to every single one of you in a unique way.

What are your thoughts about this?

If you liked this post, you could also check my articles on How the excessive daily use of Internet could affect your memory and why Highly intelligent people are happier alone

Source:Lara Boyd TEDxVancouver After watching this, your brain will not be the same
Pictures: PixaBay