His brain got rewired, not yours Harry. Imagine what would have happened if yours had.
REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Karen Watters Cole" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Survival of the Busiest > Karen, > > Amazing! > > My sole contribution to the musical world is the result of my brain not > rewiring. > > Henry Holst - brother of Gustav - tried to teach me the violin. The > experience was so nerve-racking he stopped teaching and became a soloist > with many of the world's great orchestras. > > If my brain had been capable of rewiring, he might still be teaching violin. > > HARRY > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ > > Karen wrote: > > >I do not remember where this article came from (perhaps FW since I do not > >have the source) but remembered it during this latest discussion on the > >brain and thought to add it to the menu. It s fairly long, but > >interesting reading for those who are keeping up with the debate over > >Nature vs Nurture and research applications. If anyone would prefer it > >formatted in a doc, please let me know. The book is now available and > >Amazon.com has reviews. Karen Watters Cole > > > >Survival of the Busiest > >Parts of the Brain That Get Most Use Literally Expand And Rewire on Demand > > > >Adapted from the book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the > >Power of Mental Force. > >Copyright © 2002 by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and Sharon Begley. (Oct > >2002 ReganBooks, a division of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Reprinted by > >permission). ISBN: 0060393556. > > > >For the conventional wisdom on our gray matter, just open any lavishly > >illustrated brain book. There, detailed diagrams map out specialized brain > >structures: areas that generate speech and areas that process vision, > >areas that sense sound and areas that detect when you touch your left big toe. > > > >The diagrams resemble nothing so much as zoning maps produced by the most > >rigid land use board. Every bit of neural real estate is assigned a job, > >reflecting the decades-long belief that different parts of the brain are > >hardwired for certain functions. > > > >This view of the brain dates back to 1857, when French neurosurgeon Paul > >Broca discovered that particular regions are specialized for particular > >functions, such as language. His and subsequent discoveries gave rise to > >the dogma of the hard-wired adult brain, and it had profound real-world > >consequences. It held that if the brain sustained injury through stroke > >or trauma to, say, a region responsible for moving the left arm, then > >other regions could not step up to the plate and pinch-hit. The function > >of the injured region would be lost forever. And it implied that if, by > >the age of 12 or so, you had not recruited neurons to the specialized task > >of playing the violin, for instance, or learning a second language, then > >you might as well give up: your old brain was simply not going to learn > >new tricks. > > > >But that dogma has been under assault in recent years. Although specific > >portions of the brain do, usually, specialize in certain tasks, the brain > >is much more adaptable and renewable than previously thought-and that s > >true throughout life. > > > >Animal experiments provided the first hints that the brain is able to > >change dramatically after childhood. When lab monkeys practiced - and > >practiced - the trick of using a single finger to reach into a tiny dish > >and grab a morsel of food, the brain region devoted to fine motor control > >of that finger grew like suburban sprawl. And these were grown-up monkeys. > > > >Even the adult brain is plastic, able to forge new connections among its > >neurons and thus rewire itself. Sensory input can change the brain, and > >the brain remodels itself in response to behavioral demands. Regions that > >get the most use literally expand. In terms of which neural circuits > >endure and enlarge, you can call it survival of the busiest. > > > >In 1993, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, then at the National Institute of > >Neurological Disorders and Stroke, led the search for what would become > >one of the earliest findings in human neuroplasticity. Does anyone, he > >wondered, habitually experience powerful tactile stimulation to a > >particular portion of their body? Of course: blind people who read > >Braille with their fingertips. > > > >Dr. Pascual-Leone recruited 15 proficient Braille readers and wired them > >up so he could measure their somatosensory cortex-the part of the brain > >that registers and processes the sense of touch. Then he administered > >weak electrical shocks to the tip of their right forefingers (the reading > >finger ), recording which parts of the somatosensory cortex registered the > >sensation. He did the same thing to the blind people s left index finger, > >and to fingers in non-Braillereaders that don t get exceptional use. > > > >The result was unmistakable. In the Braille readers, the area of > >somatosensory cortex devoted to the reading finger was much larger than > >the comparable area for fingers in both blind and sighted people who don t > >have such demands put on them. It was a clear case of sensory input > >changing the brain. The cortical region processing that input had > >expanded, with a consequent increase in sensitivity. That would explain > >how Braille readers are able to make such fine discriminations among > >patterns of tiny raised dots. > > > >By the spring of 1995, Edward Taub was also exploiting the ability of the > >brain to rewire itself. The University of Alabama, Birmingham, scientist > >was developing a revolutionary new therapy for stroke patients. The goal > >was to enable an intact area of the brain to take over for a region > >knocked out by stroke. But Dr. Taub was sure that neuroplasticity went > >beyond damaged brains. His goal was to see how normal behaviors changed > >brain maps. > > > >One evening that spring, he and his wife Mildred Allen, a lyric soprano > >who had been a principal artist at New York s Metropolitan Opera in New > >York, were having dinner in Germany with a group of neuroscientists. > >Casting around for a study they could collaborate on, Dr. Taub asked the > >group: Is there any normal activity that uses one hand way more than the > >other? The scientists were flummoxed, but Ms. Allen chimed in, Oh, that s > >easy-playing a string instrument. > > > >When a right-handed musician plays the violin, four digits of the left > >hand continuously finger the strings. (The left thumb grasps the neck of > >the violin, undergoing only small shifts of position and pressure.) The > >right, or bowing, hand undertakes far fewer individual finger > >movements. Might this pattern leave a trace on the cerebral cortex? > > > >To find out, the scientists recruited six violinists, two cellists and one > >guitarist, all of whom had played their instrument for seven to 17 years, > >as well as six nonmusicians. The volunteers sat still while a pneumatic > >stimulator applied light pressure to their fingers to record neuronal > >activity in the part of the brain that processes the sense of touch. > > > >There was no difference between the string players and the nonmusicians in > >how much of the cortex was devoted to feeling the fingers of the right > >hand. But there was a huge difference when it came to the left hand: The > >amount of brain territory devoted to those fingers had increased > >substantially. That increase was greatest in musicians who began to play > >before the age of 12. > > > >But to Dr. Taub, the most dramatic finding was that even in people who > >took up the violin as adults, regular practice had changed their > >brains. Their cortex had rezoned itself so that more neurons were > >assigned to the fingers of the left hand. Even if you take up the violin > >at 40, you still get brain reorganization, he says. > > > >These were the opening shots in what would become a revolution in > >treatment for stroke, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette > >s syndrome and other brain diseases. All were based on the discovery that > >the brain has the ability to change in response to the input it receives. > > > >At the University of California, San Francisco, researchers led by Michael > >Merzenich had shown that sound has the power to reshape the brain in lab > >monkeys. Across the country, at Rutgers, University in New Jersey, > >neuroscientists Paula Tallal and Steve Miller had begun to suspect that > >Specific Language Impairment (a general term that includes dyslexia) might > >reflect a problem not with recognizing the appearance of letters and words > >but, instead, with processing certain speech sounds-fast ones. > > > >Dyslexics, Dr. Tallal thought, have some brain impairment that prevents > >them from hearing staccato sounds like b, p, d and g, which burst from > >the lips and vanish in just a few thousandths of a second. Since learning > >to read involves matching written words to the heard language, it s no > >wonder that a failure to hear certain sounds impairs reading ability. > > > >When Dr. Tallal discussed her theory at a science meeting in Santa Fe, you > >could almost see-the light bulb go off over Dr. Merzenich s head. His > >experiments on monkeys, he told her, had implications for her ideas about > >dyslexia. Dyslexics might become better readers, he said, if their brain > >could be rewired to hear staccato phonemes something that could be done by > >harnessing the power of neuroplasticity. > > > >To find out if the brains of young dyslexics could be rewired, and if that > >rewiring would help them read better, the Rutgers scientists recruited > >about a dozen kids and designed an experiment. One of Dr. Merzenich s > >colleagues, meanwhile, wrote software that slows down staccato phonemes, > >stretching out the interval between b and aaah in baa, for example. To > >everyone else, the processed speech sounds like someone shouting > >underwater. But to the dyslexic children, the scientists hoped, it would, > >sound like baa -a sound they had never before heard clearly. When Dr. > >Tallal listened to the processed speech, she was so concerned that the > >kids would be bored out of their minds listening to endless repetitions of > >words and phonemes, that she dashed out for a supply of Cheetos. She > >figured her team would have to bribe the kids to stick with the program. > > > >And so began Camp Rutgers. For 20 days one summer, 22 kids age five to > >nine played CD-ROM games structured to alter the brain. One game asked > >the child to point to rake when pictures of a lake as well as a rake were > >presented, or to click a mouse when a series of the spoken letter g was > >interrupted by a k . To train the brain to hear target sounds, the > >computer voice stretched them out, intoning rrrake and ddday and bbbay. > > > >To ease the monotony, the scientists offered the kids snacks and puppets, > >frequent breaks and even handstand demonstrations. Steve Miller recalls: > >All we did for hours every day was listen. We couldn t even talk to the > >kids; they got enough normal speech outside the lab. It was so boring > >that Paula had to give us pep talks and tell us to stop whining. She > >would give us a thumbs-up for a good job-and we d give her a different > >finger back. > > > >After a few months of training, all the children tested at normal or above > >in their ability to distinguish sounds. Their language and reading > >ability rose two years, something no other dyslexia program had > >achieved. Although the research did not include brain scans, it seemed > >Fast ForWord (as the software was called) was doing something more > >dramatic than your run-of-the-mill educational CD: It was rewiring > >brains. You create your brain from the input you get, says Paula Tallal. > > > >At first that was only speculation. Critics of Fast ForWord said the > >system was being rushed to market before its claims had been proved. The > >contention that Fast ForWord reshapes the brain was the target of the most > >vituperation. Michael Studdert-Kennedy, past president of the Haskins > >Laboratories, a center for the study of speech and language at Yale > >University, told the New York Times in 1999 that inducing neuroplasticity > >was an absurd stunt that would not help anyone learn to read. > > > >Yet a year later, researchers reported compelling evidence to the > >contrary. Using brain-scan technology called functional Magnetic > >Resonance Imaging (fMRI), John Gabrieli of Stanford University compared > >the brains of dyslexics before and after Fast ForWord. He found exactly > >what the skeptics said he wouldn t: In dyslexics whose language > >comprehension had been improved, the brain s left prefrontal region showed > >more activity after training. Hearing the drawn-out sounds apparently > >induced this region, impaired in dyslexics, to do its job of processing > >staccato sounds. > > > >As evidence accumulated that changes in the sensory information reaching > >the brain can profoundly alter the cortex, an obvious question arose: Can > >the mind itself change the brain? Can mere thinking do it? Dr. > >Pascual-Leone, now at Harvard University, provided a preliminary answer, > >with an experiment that has not received nearly the attention it deserves. > > > >He had one group of volunteers practice a five-finger piano exercise, and > >a comparable group merely think about practicing it. This second group > >focused on each finger movement in turn, essentially playing the simple > >piece in their heads, one note at a time. > > > >Actual physical practice produced changes in each volunteer s motor > >cortex, as expected. But so did mere mental rehearsal. In fact, as big a > >change as the physical practice. Like actual movement, imagined movements > >change the cortex. Merely thinking about moving produces brain changes > >comparable to those triggered by actually moving. > > > >The existence, and importance, of brain plasticity are no longer in > >doubt. The brain is dynamic, and the life we lead leaves its mark in the > >complex circuitry of the brain -footprints of the experiences we have had, > >the thoughts we have thought, the actions we have taken. The brain > >allocates neural real estate depending on what we use most: the thumb of a > >videogame addict, the index finger of a Braille reader, the analytic > >ability of a chess player, the language skills of a linguist. > > > >But the brain also remakes itself based on something much more ephemeral > >than what we do: It rewires itself based on what we think. This will be > >the next frontier for neuroplasticity, harnessing the transforming power > >of the mind to reshape the brain. > > > ****************************** > Harry Pollard > Henry George School of LA > Box 655 > Tujunga CA 91042 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (818) 352-4141 > Fax: (818) 353-2242 > ******************************* > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.434 / Virus Database: 243 - Release Date: 12/25/2002 > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
