In this episode of the Brain Science Podcast we explore the recent research that has established, contrary to long-standing dogma, that our brains our able to change throughout our lives, based on our experience.
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Show Notes
The reference for this episode is Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves, by Sharon Begley. This book describes the 2004 meeting between the Dalai Llama and several leading neuroscientists. To learn more about these meetings go to the Mind and Life Institute website. All the studies that I mention in the podcast are referenced in the back of the book.
Here is a list of the some of the scientists and there work.
- Michael Meany- McGill University. He has shown that the way that a mother rat treats her babies determine which genes in the baby’s brain are turned on and which are turned off.
- Fred Gage- the Salk Institute His work with lab animals to showed that adult brains do change. (more from Google)
- Helen Neville-University of Oregon. She has shown that the auditory and visual cortexes are rewired in people who are born blind or deaf.
- Phillip Shaver-UC-Davis. He is a pioneer in attachment theory: how people’s sense of emotional security, acquired in childhood, effects their adult behavior including their response to other ethnic groups and their willingness to help others
- Richard Davidson-Wisconsin. He has done studies showing how the brain is changed by meditation
- Edward Taub- University of Alabama in Birmingham. He helped develop a revolutionary treatment for stroke victims
- Jeffery Schwartz-UCLA. He has used mindfulness meditation to treat obsessive compulsive disorder, showing that meditation can change the brain in beneficial ways.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn- University of Massachusetts. He has done many years of work using mindfulness meditation to treat stress related diseases.
- Michael Merzenich-pioneer researcher who also founded FastForward™ and Posit Science™.
More Links of Interest:
- Imposed Constraint Treatment for Stroke
- Treatment of Anxiety Disorders with Mindfulness Meditation
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression
- Brain Changes are different from those caused by medications
- more Google links on how the brain changes
I am sure this list is incomplete. If you have a question or comment about a topic mentioned on the show, leave a comment below or send me email at docartemis at gmail.com
Filed under: brain science, Neuroscience, philosophy of mind, Podcast Show Notes
Really enjoyed this one, and as an ‘old dog’ who’s had to learn a lot of new tricks in the last few years, I would agree that it might take us a bit longer but we CAN do it! I am a Neurohistologist and we have to keep learning new technology as part of the job and my employers don’t expect me to say, sorry I’m too old!!
Good to hear from you again Kate!
I found this material really exciting because I too am getting older and I want to keep learning new things. In fact, learning NEW things seems to be one of the keys to keeping our brain Plastic. Of course, as a physician I also have to keep up with new ideas and methods constantly. It might take some effort, but it is also rewarding.
I hope I never have a stroke, but if I ever do I am going to demand the rehab method pioneered by Dr. Taub.
I want to add a comment that was left by Ed Sheehy on the Libsyn site about this episode:
Ginger
As a fellow ER doc, I very much appreciate what you are doing. Disseminating this information in a digestible manner is of paramount importance, especially now that we have the ability to make or destroy our civilization. By understanding that dualism is dead and that our ethical and moral values are functions of an organ shaped by natural selection, and therefore subject to bias, we hopefully can arrive at a cultural, political and spiritual state compatible with long term survival. I especially enjoyed your interview w/ the author of ‘The First Idea’ and certainly intend to read his book. I found that question and answer format easy to follow and interesting. Any chance on getting Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daneil Dennett, Joe LeDoux, V. Ramachandran, S. Pinker, etc?
thanks
Kent
Kent,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
The names you listed are quite ambitious targets for interviews. My podcast is still relatively new and I feel I need to build up my audience a little before I approach any of these writers. The best time to get interviews is when they have new books out. Dennett’s and Dawkins most recent books are our outside my current scope. I have Harris’ book too. Have you listened to my other podcast Books and Ideas? You would probably enjoyed the Lee Silver interview.
Its great to get feedback from another ER doc. I know you appreciate the challenge and satisfaction of trying to explain scientific ideas to patients. The great thing about doing this podcast is that I get to share these exciting ideas with people who share my curiosity about how the brain works. Getting feedback means a lot.
This podcast was extremely insightful and, I am sure, helped me in retaining the plasticity of my brain. As a soon-to-be teacher, the points you made about attention (and being forced) hindering learning effects are very important. Keep up the good work, and sooner or later Dawkins et al will line up to be interviewed…
[...] #10: Neuroplasticity [...]
[...] You can also find more on neuroplasticity, including links to some of the scientists she mentions in her interview here. [...]
[...] You can also find more on neuroplasticity, including links to some of the scientists she mentions in her interview here. [...]
[...] in Episode 28. If you are new to the Brain Science Podcast you may want to go back and listen to Episode 10, which is where I first introduced neuroplasticity in my discussion of Train Your Mind, Change Your [...]
Hi.
I think the neuro-plasticity discussion is one of the most important ones we can all have. If nothing else, it offers everyone (very important) hope of things getting better.
I’d love to learn more. I develop software and think that building some software tools would be a wonderful open-source project that many people could benefit from. I wish I had a design that I could build some software tools from.
Ginger, keep up the wonderful work. Kudos Kudos!
Jeff
I hope you also enjoy episode #25 where I talk with Dr. Norman Doidge about neuroplasticity. He calls it “the most important discovery about the brain in the last 4 hundred years.” I agree!
[...] first podcast is Brain Science Podcast #10 Neuroplasticity, a presentation structured around the book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science [...]
[...] and other neurological disabilities. I have talked about his work in previous episodes (including episode 10 and episode 26) as an important example of the practical implications of brain plasticity. Listen [...]
[...] and other neurological disabilities. I have talked about his work in previous episodes (including episode 10 and episode 26) as an important example of the practical implications of brain plasticity. Listen [...]
I have just listened to this episode and must tell you I really appreciate the whole series. So keep up the good work.
This episode (10) raised some questions for me I would like some feedback on.
You mention how mindfulness and meditation can be helpful for people with obsessive compulsive disorder. For depression you mention cognitive behaviour therapy and medication treatments.
I recently became interested in meditation as a way of dealing with negative thinking and actually found the process of “observing” one’s thoughts and recognising that they were “just ” thoughts was very effective. Much more effective than trying to replace or change the thoughts (cognitive behaviour?).
About the same time I discovered Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which seems to be a current approach to dealing with these sorts of problems. It turns out to be much the same approach as the above form of meditation – it also stresses mindfulness. It effectively encourages the same process of observing one’s thoughts without the requirement of meditation.
Now, I would think that ACT would be more effective than cognitive behaviour therapy in treating depression but you didn’t mention it .
Do you know if ACT is an accepted way of treating depression? What is your view of ACT compared with cognitive behaviour? Is it a more recent replacement or is it complementary?
I am not familiar with ACT.
There were several reasons why I mentioned cognitive behavioral therapy in Episode 10. First, it was featured in the book I was discussing and second, it is one that I know has mainstream acceptance because I have seen it in the continuing medical education material that I receive from the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Another treatment approach that is very effective is exercise. I will be discussing this in Episode 33.
[...] to look so hard had I not listened in on Dr. Campbell’s early discussion of neuroplasticity (Episode 10, on the book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, by Sharon Begley) and on her interview with Dr. [...]