Quotes About Plasticity

There's an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical thought in the reading brain because it implies choice.

If I do have a strength, it probably is adaptability.

On buses and trains, I always think about the inexhaustible variety of human genes. We see types, and occasionally twins, but never doubles. All faces are unique, and this is exhilarating, despite the increasingly plastic similarity of TV stars and actors.

Prior to Magellan, due to the fact that we knew it was so hot on Venus, we thought that the rocks at the surface would behave more plastically, more like Silly Putty than like solid rock in the way that we think of it, like the rocks that I'm sitting on.

You gotta be versatile, man.

I think being versatile is important.

My biggest strength is my versatility.

this kind of increased synaptic strength is a key to the formation of enduring neuronal circuits and has become known by the maxim "Cells that fire together, wire together.

The molecular basis of memory and learning, the discovery of which earned Kandel a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, stands as one of the best understood of the changes the brain undergoes. It is one of the mechanisms that underlie the plasticity of the developing brain. Changes in how an organism interacts with its environment result in changes in connectivity.

Training in rapid acoustic discrimination can apparently induce the left prefrontal cortex, which is normally attuned to fast-changing acoustic stimuli but is disrupted in dyslexics, to do its job. The region, even in adults, remains plastic enough...to develop such differential sensitivity after intensive training, the scientists concluded.

If we happened to somehow distinguish ourselves, we quickly napped into place, like rubber bands

Life in Anaheim, California, was a commercial for itself, endlessly replayed. Nothing changed; it just spread out farther and farther in the form of neon ooze. What there was always more of had been congealed into permanence long ago, as if the automatic factory that cranked out these objects had jammed in the on position. How the land became plastic, he thought, remembering the fairy tale How the Sea Became Salt.

Neurons are living cells, and they can connect to one another in trillions of different ways. These connections don't just lead to learning—the connections are the learning.

one of the surprises that has shaken the very foundations of neuroscience is the discovery that the brain is actually "plastic," or moldable. This means that the brain physically changes throughout the course of our lives, not just in childhood, as we had previously assumed. What molds our brain? Experience. Even into old age, our experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain.

Early experience shapes the structure and function of the brain. This reveals the fundamental way in which gene expression is determined by experience.

What molds our brain? Experience. Even into old age, our experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain. When we undergo an experience, our brain cells—called neurons—become active, or "fire." The brain has one hundred billion neurons, each with an average of ten thousand connections to other neurons.

When neurons fire together, they grow new connections between them. Over time, the connections that result from firing lead to "rewiring" in the brain. This

experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain.

The upstairs brain remains under massive construction for the first few years of life, then during the teen years undergoes an extensive remodel that lasts into adulthood.

descubrimiento de que el cerebro en realidad es «dúctil», o moldeable. Eso significa que el cerebro cambia físicamente a lo largo de toda nuestra vida, y no sólo en la infancia, como antes suponíamos.

What's even more exciting is what happens after we appeal to the upstairs brain. When it gets engaged repeatedly, it becomes strong. Neurons that fire together wire together.

Neuroscientists have a saying: "As the neuron fires, the brain rewires." It means that when you perform a behavior repeatedly, over time, your brain actually changes itself structurally to support that habit. "Plasticity," as it's called, will occur in support of any habit—good or bad.

Man is unique not because he does science, and he is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.

Man is unique not because he does science, and his is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.