Introduction

Do you know that anytime you learn a new skill, you change your brain? There were times when certain scientists and researchers held the thought that only negative changes takes place in the brain after puberty. Also, that our brain cells starts getting older after puberty, and that these changes have devastating effects, which could lead to stroke. Further studies with advanced technologies went ahead to disprove this myth, and later discovered that our behaviors change our brain, and age does not limit this changes, and they are constantly changing all the time

Neuroplasticity is otherwise known as ** neural plasticity ** or ** brain plasticity **. In the course of life, there are inevitable changes and developments that must take place in the life of living organisms. Some of these changes includes, learning new skills, adapting to new environments, etc. These changes can be structural, physical, or chemical, and occurs in the brain. These changes are what we call "Neuroplasticity" meaning the ability for the brain to change its structure and organisation in order to form new neural connections to support learning adaptation, new experiences, and other brain activities

Have you ever wondered why individuals in certain areas behave and think alike? I mean people in first world countries are exposed to certain kind of good life, and often behave accordingly, while individuals in 3rd world countries don't even have access to life's basic necessities. But at the end, everyone still adapts to their different worlds.

Now take that same person away from his 3rd world country and relocate him to a first world country, and see him slowly adapt to his new world. What most people see is the outward changes, but most folks don't understand the brain rewiring, I mean neural synapses and pathways in the brain that has been altered to cause this gradual change.

The whole brain chemical structural and functional change processes that took place, is what is known as ** Neuroplasticity ** This new smell, environment, behavior, pattern of thinking, dress sense, language, and all the new information, Causes a gradual change in the makeup of the brain, in order to adapt

How does neuroplasticity function

First, we must understand that conscious and unconscious changes in the brain takes lots of time to happen to happen, its not an overnight process. These changes does not just occur in neural synapses and brain pathways, other areas like neurons, glial, vascular cells might be altered too

The brain's process of strengthening new neural connections, and deleting old unnecessary ones, is known as synaptic pruning. synaptic pruning also works together with Neuroplasticity to cause those necessary changes in the brain.

If you observe closely, you'll often find out that what you don't use, you lose. Neurons gradually grow weak, and gradually dies off when we dont use them for a long time. This process is called ** apoptosis **. Pruning is often dependent on an individual's life experiences or how often/recent the connection has been used. To properly understand or personalise this, try learning a musical instrument, and don't practice for a long time. you'l discover that you'll start struggling with scales you used to play with ease

Neuroplasticity is always taking place in our brains. when we learn a new language, a new skill, during Learning, memorization, and sometimes, none of these mentioned activities needs to occur, the mere fact that your brain functions and develops, neuroplasticity takes place. However, a physical hurt can alter the functionality of the brain

A typical example, is seen when an individual gets a brain injury from an accident. The human body is a natural repairing system, and the brain isn't left out in this. The brain looks for a way to restore its functions by providing a new wiring system within itself. This often ends up in an unaffected part of the brain, taking over the affected part.

Types of Neuroplasticity

1. Developmental plasticity

Just as the name implies, developmental plasticity often takes place in the early stages of a child's life. This is when neurons rapidly grow and creates different branches in order to form as many connections as necessary. According to wikipedia, "a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or to the target efferent cell". Every neuron has about 2,500 synapses at infancy. When the child leaves the infant stage and gets to his or her 2nd or 3rd year, these synapses grows up to approximately 15,000 for one neuron. This doubles at adulthood. As time goes on, the interaction between an individual and his surrounding is adjusted by these connections.

2. Homologous area adaptations

Recall, I earlier mentioned that the brain readjusts itself after a brain injury. The brain automatically rewires itself, which often ends up in an unaffected area of the brain taking over the functions of the affected part. One of the major problem with homologous area adaptation is the very fact that this rearrangement may come at cost to certain brain functions, which are stored in this module

3. Compensatory Masquerade

There are events where the brain has to look for alternative strategies, especially when the main strategy of a particular task can no longer be followed due to one problem or another. This type of brain change is referred to as compensatory masquerade

4. Cross-modal reassignment

Cross-modal reassignment occurs when new inputs are introduced to an area of the brain, probably because the main inputs can no longer perform its function for one reason or another. An example is when a blind individual replaces his visualization with touch. It is however important to know that this is not a simple case of just changing a brain area in charge of vision to all of a sudden become in charge of touch, as the functionality of a brain region is actually changed

5. Map expansion

This is the kind of brain change that occurs when you start learning a musical instrument or any other skill, or anything related to learning. Map expansion is about the flexibility of our different brain regions. When a function or a behavior is repeated long enough, there is a shrink or growth in the brain region which is assigned to this function. This region grows as the individual gets pretty familiar with whatever he is learning, and shrinks when the individual begins to clearly express himself with whatever he is learning. The region begins to go back to its enlargement as the individual continues to develop that skill by engaging in practice at a regular basis

Neuroplasticity changes

To support learning, there are three basic changes that takes place in the brain, including..

Chemical changes

One very important way the brain functions, is by transferring chemical signals between its cells, which results in different actions and reactions. The brain increases the concentration of these signals which are constantly taking place between neurons, in order to support/facilitate our learning. This is the kind of chemical changes that support short term skills and memory, because it can happen very rapidly

Structural Brain Alteration (Physical)

Altering the brain structure, is another way of changing the brain. While we learn, the brain is capable of altering connections between neurons. Altering our brain structure involves the change of our brain's physical structure, and takes a bit more time than the change that takes place in chemical change. this kind of change, is responsible for long term memory

Have you ever tried learning a new skill like playing the guitar or learning a dance skill, etc. We get better within a single section of practice, but sometimes come back to rehearsals another time, only to realise that those improvements are nowhere to be found. The question no becomes, what happened?

Your brain actually increased the chemical signaling between the neurons in them, but was unable to keep this increased signaling on a long term. The chemical changes actually did not induce the long term memory structural change. I made it clear that short term memory doesn't support lasting change, and long term memory takes time to develop.

It is important to note that whatever we see in the short term memory, does not necessarily mean we have become a pro or genius over night. It's the long term memory that supports lasting learning or change. However, the short term memory chemical change, and everything connected to it, has a role to play in learning. So the chemical changes which occurs in the brain supports short term memory, while the physical changes in the brain supports long term memory.

Structural brain changes, can lead to the coming together of networks of our brain regions, in order to aid learning. This kind of brain changes, can also lead to structural enhancement/enlargement of certain regions in the brain which are very poor in some specific behaviors. A typical example of this, is seen in blind people, especially the ones capable of reading Braille. They have a larger hand sensory area in their brain than individuals that dont.

Altering brain functions

This is another way the brain can change. The more you use your brain, the more it gets easier to be used again and again. There are certain areas of the brain that increases its exitability, depending on how and when they get activated. While we learn everyday, our brain network activities tend to adjust and change constantly.

The best influencer of plastic changes in the brain, is the behavior

We now know that neuroplasticity is supported by chemical, structural, and functional changes. These changes constantly occurs in our entire brain networks, sometimes together, while some changes could occur together by mutual agreement. but at the end, these changes support learning. Personally, I think any individual can pretty much learn anything they want to, because the brain is naturally designed to adjust itself to new improvements. well, its just a matter of interest. An example of this is seen in Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold went ahead to learn different skills, winning awards in different spheres.

The question now becomes, if our brain can be adjusted during changes, why do some kids come last in class, why do we forget more, as we grow older? The major problem now is, it takes a very large doze of behavior or rehearsals to learn a new motor skill. So how can we solve this problem? There are recent therapies that is targeted at priming the brain, in order to learn something new, including exercises, brain stimulation, robotics.

There is no amount of neuroplasticity drug you can take to enhance learning. "practice makes perfect" isn't obsolete and can never be. The more hardwork you put in, the more learning or improvement you get in whatever endeavor you chose, because more hard works improves your brain structural changes

There isn't any "one size fits all" when it comes to learning and exercising the brain. You must put in the hardwork. Some say 10,000 hours is what it takes to Learn a new skill. This isn't particularly true for everybody, as it could take more than that for some and far less for others. Precision medicine isnt just peculiar to cancer therapy, it could also be applied in neuroplastic change issues. There are some characteristics of brain structuring and functioning that ia known as biomarkers. over the years, biomarkers have been used to match different treatment with different individuals. You can personalise your brain

In conclusion

There are three changes that takes place in the brain, including physical, chemical and structural changes. The chemical changes are concerned with short term changes, while the physical changes are concerned with long term changes. Our every day behavior is very important because it plays a huge role in the changes which are taking place in out brains. As a matter of fact, our behaviors are changing our brain. While we improve on personalised medicine, we should also know that it is possible to personalise Learning, because the uniqueness of our brain has a huge effect on us, stay smart.

Thanks for reading,
written by: @akiripromise

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Reference

[1] Neuroplasticity, Wikipedia

[2] Neuroplasticity and behavior

[3] Overview

[4] Different neuroplasticity types

[5] What is neuroplasticity

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