> [Krimel] > Learning to play tennis "re-wires" the brain, as does meditation, listening > to the radio and pretty much everything we do. The amount of effort required > to learn a set of facts or skills is a pretty good indicator of the amount > of rewiring involved.
[Dave] The "rewires" analogy may not have been the best. The point of the article was that the brain permanently changes so the previous visual aspect was no longer present. While I understand that some research suggests that long term meditation can permanently, biologically, and physically change the way the brain functions, I did not know that "everything we do" does that. [Krimel] "Rewiring" actually does work. The brain is an impossiblly complex network of 100 billion neurons. Each neuron connects to as many as 50,000 other neurons. Within this vast neural network, brain activity consists of patterns of neurons firing. As a sequence of neural firings occurs on multiple occasions that pattern begins to occur more efficiently, it becomes more probable. It is not rewiring in the sense of new neuron or new connections being formed but in the sense on changes in the probability of particular patterns of firing. Actual rewiring can occur in cases of brain damage such as stoke where areas of brain function are destroyed and nearby regions are taken over to restore function. If you like I can provide you with lots of examples of this, Jill Bolte-Taylor would be one. These changes is the probability distribution of firing within the neural net are what learning and experience are all about. Within this enormous 3D fractal the possibilities for interaction are infinite but infinite possibility gets reduced to actual probability through ongoing interaction of sensory input and motor output. If a meditator only meditates once or twice the brain will change very little; no more than say a tennis play who only takes one or two tennis lessons. But it one devotes years of practice to either task, the pattern of neural firing in either case will change in proportion. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
