Brain Plasticity

Ever wonder what happens when you engage in a new activity and repetitively practice it?  No matter if it's a physical or mental activity, your brain, that big organ, is physically changing like your heart, lungs and cardiovascular system do when you exercise.

A new book I'm reading, titled, "Brain Plasticity and Behavior," by Bryan Kolb, elaborates on the adaptability of humans and animals given their brain's ability to physically change due to activity or environment (pages 3-14).

Well, so what? What does this have to do with an argument of technology?  Well how bout the fact that when one is partially deaf and needs a cochlear implant, how does the brain adapt to this?  This is an elctronic device that has to communicate with the victim's brain in order to work.

Another Neuroscience book I read earlier this fall, titled, "Big Brain" spoke about the fact that one who gets such a device in their ear may experience some transition time--why? because their brain is physically re-wiring aka adapting and changing its structure to be able to properly communicate the electrical signals it's receiving.  The book goes on to say that to those wearing them there is a week or two when the transition occurs.  

In this reading, the author (who I forget the name of), used a simile saying, it's similar to when you try to find the juuussst the right radio signal when you're flipping through allll the channels.  The fuzz is something you avoid.  Well the beauty of the brain is that when given this fuzz repeatedly, it physically changes its own structure to be able to use this one signal its given.  But it takes a week or two for the brain to do so.  Another example the authors give was comparing it to when we, humans, hear someone with a thick accent or one we've yet ever heard.  The first time we hear it, it's very difficult to understand for us, but if we're around that person or that culture for a few weeks, we are able to learn and adjust and understand better and better and better, hence the physical structural change aka plasticity in our brains.

If you have any experiences that you'd like to share whether it was a new activity or mental challenge, feel free to tell your experience.