Neuroplasticity is the brains ability to change and lay down new neuron pathways as individuals are exposed to new environments

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Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change and lay down new neuron pathways as individuals are exposed to new environments, stimulation, and experiences. It rewires and reconstructs itself for maximum functionality, adding processes of learning and memory to permanent skills and abilities. In medical applications, it is the key factor to recover through surgery removals and injuries in the central nervous system.

The concept of neuroplasticity is fairly new in the world of neuroscience research. However, they are many implications that two major factors report activating the rewiring of the brain; stimulation and experience.

Rosenzweig & Benson (1972) reported that enriched environment or rather natural environment have a major influence in the fundamental process of neuroplasticity and increase the complexity of the brain’s circuitry. They began by gathering three male rats and at random assigned them to particular cages of different environments. The first cage was standard, occupying other rats and having adequate supply of food and water. The second cage was described to be impoverished, with no other rat occupants and adequate water. The third cage was what Rosenzweig referred to as the enriched environment that had a variety of toys for the rats to play with. These rats were left in the assigned cages for a duration of a month. After 30 days, Rosenzweig and Benson yield significant results using the differentiation in brain and synaptic activity between all three rats. The enriched rats had a heavier cerebral cortex, involving the responses to experience and is responsible for many mental functions for example, memory, and produced larger neurons, which implies a greater chemical activity. One can conclude that the exposure to a natural environment that challenges and improves learning abilities can alter the brain to increase neuron activity and thus develop a greater number of skills and enhance knowledge capacity. However, limitations in this experiment must be considered to conclude to a reliable result. Their research was done entirely in a laboratory environment; hence it cannot be applied to reality or real world situations with natural factors.  The cages of a specified category of an “enriched” and “impoverished” environment are not similar to that of humans and the fact that the conditions the rats were placed in cannot be correlated with that of children’s.  

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Even so, Professor W. Greenough  (1970) reports that the brain will continue its growing regardless of the number of stimulation because of what he coined as experience-expectant behaviors, the idea that the brain assumes you will encounter the natural experiences such as seeing things and learning in general. Experience-dependent learning, unique cultural experiences, is what enhances brain growth to a further extent. Hence, one can learn that the more exposure to learning stimulation, the more development the brain undergoes and that even old brains are still plastic for change unless the individual is placed in a impoverished environment with complete ...

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