Brain Plasticity & Life Long Brain Power

Brain Plasticity is big news today. You might think that means the brain is hard like the casing for your cell phone or laptop. Quite the opposite - a plastic brain is a brain that is flexible and can easily adapt to change. Having a very plastic brain allows us to cope, communicate, learn and love at amazing levels.

We used to think that the brain, because it's already 95 percent of adult size by age six, was set in place early in life. Now we realize that isn't true. There's enormous capacity for change at any age in intelligence, creativity and emotional development throughout our entire life.

The plastic brain has the amazing ability to reorganize itself by forming new connections between brain cells. How we manage our daily lives plays a huge role in increasing our brain plasticity.

Brain Pruning: A Major Threat To Brain Plasticity

The human brain size changes little over the child and teen years. Nonetheless, considerable cellular and functional changes do occur. Brain Pruning involves preserving the most used neurons, synapses, and dendrites as we experience our world, make new relationships and learn new lessons. During adolescence, the brain reorganizes and eliminates many synaptic connections, a process known as brain pruning.

If the pruning is accomplished "wisely," then synapses that are most important to survival and optimal function will flourish whereas useless connections vanish. If pruning is because the visual system is overworking, causing the verbal system to under-perform, then as many as 50 symptoms can develop. These symptoms can look like Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Asperger's Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder or Communication Disability.