What Is Brain Plasticity?

This is Brain Awareness Week, March 15 to 21 and there is growing evidence that suggests that promoting sleep maybe useful to restore synaptic plasticity in different pathological conditions.  Since plastic processes are essential for functional recovery, management of the sleep-wake cycle in patients and an adequate treatment of associated sleep disturbances could be crucial for the rehabilitation outcome. 

I did some reading of a few studies on how Brain Plasticity may help us. I have tried to summarize what I read below but remember these are my interpretations of some interesting articles I found by doing a google search on brain plasticity and sleep and reviewing the scientific journals that came up in the search. (The pandemic restrictions gives us lots of free time to explore.)

 Essentially, the human brain is a collection of nerve cells. These cells are communicated with by chemicals called neurotransmitters, which are released by various organs in the body in response to various stimuli. This helps to form emotions and many medications work by interacting with neurotransmitters and their receptors.

 The cells of the brain don't only communicate via neurotransmitters; they can also communicate with adjacent cells via electrical impulses. This means that the geographical layout of the brain is more important than was once realized.

 That's where brain plasticity, also called "neuroplasticity" or “Neuronal plasticity” and the science of plasticity psychology comes in and there are some suggestions that the neuronal plasticity may help in the treatment of Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

 OSA is a common breathing and sleep disorder, characterized by cessations or reduction in respiration due to pharyngeal collapse during sleep that induce intermittent hypoxia and sleep fragmentation increasing daytime sleepiness and risk for cardiovascular disease. OSA is associated with neurocognitive impairment, with negative influence on vigilance, attention, executive functioning, and memory.

Results from recent studies by H. Xie and W.H. Yung suggests that changes in synaptic plasticity could account for cognitive impairment in OSA patients. A better understanding of the plastic changes occurring in OSA patients, as well as their possible role in cognitive impairment, is of great importance at a therapeutic level.

 In a study done by M. M. Ohayon, M. A. Carskadon, C. Guilleminault, and M. V. Vitiello, found that sleep in patients affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by a general accentuation of the sleep modifications which are observed in normal ageing. Different studies have found an EEG slowing during a condition of resting wakefulness in AD and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) patients.

 Albeit the mechanisms underlying the beneficial melatonin effects in AD and MCI remain unclear, Kang and co-workers have found in mice that sleep reduces synaptic anomalies associated with amyloid precursor protein (APP), one of the typical synaptic alterations observed in AD. These data raise the possibility that the positive effects of sleep in AD and MCI are associated with an enhancement of synaptic plasticity. Since plastic processes are strongly impaired in AD patients, a reduction of sleep alterations could be useful to restore synaptic plasticity and to limit or to slow down the cognitive decline in such patients.

The prevalence of sleep disorders in children with autism ranges from 40% to 80%. Sleep in autistic children is characterized by long sleep latency, nocturnal awakenings, short sleep duration, low sleep efficiency, circadian rhythm disturbances, increased REM density and stage 1 sleep, reduction of REM sleep and SWS, and decreased spindle activity. Moreover, behavioural insomnia syndromes and REM sleep behaviour disorder have been often observed.

Different studies have found a deficit in melatonin secretion in autistic patients that seems to represent a risk factor (and not a consequence) of autism.

Recently it has been proposed that learning disabilities in autisms are related to an abnormally high LTP linked with pineal hypofunction, low serum melatonin levels, and sleep dysfunction. According to a recent study by A. J. Yun, K. A. Bazar, and P. Y. Lee, promoting sleep by means of a melatonin treatment may reduce learning disabilities by restoring the synaptic plasticity. Melatonin treatment improves sleep quality in autistic patients and secretin, a hormone that stimulates melatonin, induces a temporary improvement of autism symptoms.

How many eggs do I have?

 A slightly different Halloween post.

I sometimes play games on Facebook even though I realize that they are used by Trolls to gather information. My cousin Becky put a puzzle on and I read it and responded with my answer, but I was wrong.  Here is her puzzle, I suspect none of you will get it wrong.

Read carefully and slowly: it's a brain exercise!!

If I had 4 eggs🥚🥚🥚🥚

A thief gives me 3🥚🥚🥚

My farm rooster lays 5 eggs🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚

How many eggs do I have? 🤔

 I went back and re-read the puzzle and realized the mistake I had made.  When I posted the correct answer, she said to me, I was surprised when you got it wrong”. I replied, “You taught me a good lesson.”

No matter how smart we think we are there is always far more going on that we are yet to see, Even now. S when I am feeling bored or lonely again, I look a little closer.

When my grandson came over, we sometimes played the game “Where's Waldo?” I find that this game is an exceptionally good game in stretching one’s mind.  I find it easy sometimes but other times I find it awfully hard. As we get older playing games is a good way to keep our mind focused. When I got my new phone, I started to play solitaire and have about a 75%-win rate, but I started with the easy games and have moved to the medium-hard games. One day I will move to the more difficult games. What do you do to keep your mind active and young? Besides playing games and writing, I listen to many different types of music and I also physically keep active by playing golf and walking.  By the way, you may have noticed I have not given the answer to the puzzle. If you comment with an answer, I will tell you if you are right or wrong. Have fun.

Expert Consensus Statement on Brain Health 2009 Stanford University

One of our most popular workshops is on Memory and Ageing. As we age, we feat that we will lose some or all of our mental abilities and we will lose our independence as a result. If we forget something we worry, we worry that our forgetfulness is perhaps the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s.

Apprehension about the future leaves many people looking for magic bullets that will prevent our minds from failing us, and some makers of “brain-boosting” products are all too happy to claim they have magic bullet solutions. There is a huge market that includes nutritional supplements, games and software products that will help us as we age. Some of the claims are reasonable but untested, others are far-fetched and some are false.

Research shows that the brain is highly responsive to the environment and displays an impressive capacity to compensate for damage. Scientists are investigating the potential of technology-based software products and other approaches, like physical exercise, that may be useful in maintaining cognitive fitness. Remember the brain-training industry is completely unregulated and its quasi-scientific claims are not vetted by any third party, prospective consumers face the challenge of separating wild claims from serious science.

The Stanford Center on Longevity and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, convened some of the world’s finest cognitive scientists to produce a consensus statement for the public regarding the state of the science for such products. Since that time, other distinguished neuroscientists, ethicists, and ageing experts have added their names to the consensus as well. Here is what they say:

• There is a reason for optimism. Cognitive performance in many older adults appears to be improving over historical time. For example, a recent study with a national U.S. sample found that older people today show less cognitive impairment than earlier cohorts.

• Although based on plausible biochemical reasoning, dietary supplements such as Gingko Biloba do not have enough clinical research to prove they enhance cognitive performance or reduce the rate of cognitive loss.

• Software-based cognitive training and brain games have been shown to improve users’ performance on trained tasks. The important caveat is that very few training programs have shown evidence that such gains translate into improved performance in the complex realm of everyday life. A program might train you to memorize lists of words, for example, but this particular skill is not likely to help you remember where you left your car keys or the time of an upcoming appointment.

• Consumers should look for products that can substantiate their claims with evidence from research.

• Consumers should be leery of anyone who claims to cure or prevent Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia or pre-dementia.

• Taking good care of your health, especially blood pressure and blood sugar can aid cognitive performance.

• If your goal is to improve your chances of remembering peoples’ names at an upcoming party, there are many proven ways to do this. However, no intervention to date has shown that once undertaken it can reduce the rate of cognitive decline over several years or decades.

• Learning stimulates the brain and contributes to one’s general sense of competence. However, there is no evidence that any particular formal training or practice regime is required. Consider hidden costs beyond dollars and cents when investing in new training: every hour spent doing solo software drills is an hour not spent hiking, learning Italian, making a new recipe, or playing with your grandchildren. Other avenues for cognitive enhancement, such as participating in your community and exploring your passions may also stimulate your mind while producing socially meaningful outcomes.

• Physical exercise is not only a low-cost and effective way to improve your health but also an important key to improving brain fitness. Scientists have found that regular aerobic exercise increases blood flow to the brain, and helps to support the formation of new neural and vascular connections. Physical exercise has been shown to improve attention, reasoning and components of memory. Exercise as a promising approach to cognitive improvement.

Two Rooms are Better Than One When it Comes to Study Habits

The ideal claim that students should find one specific study place to focus on their homework is no longer sound advice, according to psychologist Robert Bjork at the University of California, Los Angeles. Instead, if schools want to improve student retention, they should be telling parents to encourage their children to alternate room locations during study time at home. Bjork and other researchers point to a number of studies to support the claim, including Bjork's 1978 experiment in which college students who studied 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms did better on a test than students who studied the words twice in the same room.

Related research also shows that studying separate but related concepts or skills in one sitting rather than focusing one specific skill or a single subject area also improves retention. Researchers at Williams College found that college students and older adults near retirement age were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections compared to viewing a dozen works from one painter before moving on to the next artist. The researchers say that people who studied the artwork from a variety of artists at the same time picked up deeper patterns and then compared them to paintings by different artists, often subconsciously. The same theory can be applied to using multiple skills in completing a homework assignment as a way to improve retention. For example, a single homework assignment for students studying a foreign language should include vocabulary, speaking, and reading rather than just reading.

Getting parents involved in their children's education is the goal of the Parent Involvement Action Packets for K-12 Schools, a new resource kit published by the International Center.

 Sources: www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?pagewanted=print

 

Bjork and other researchers point to a number of studies to support the claim, including Bjork's 1978 experiment in which college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms did better on a test than students who studied the words twice in the same room.

Television can help children with language, researchers find

The following article was published by by: Natasha Bita, Consumer Editor, in the The Australian on November 12, 201112:00AM. The heading implies that TV helps children, which is a simplistic view. The study actually reinforces what educators already know--parental involvement is the key to success. I have highlighted the key points of the research. So let the children watch TV, but watch with them, discuss what they see and read to them so they will have a better chance at school and life.

TOO much TV does not "dumb down" young children but can improve their language, researchers have concluded in a landmark study of the first generation of "digital natives".

The research, based on data from the federal government's longitudinal study of Australian children, questions the conventional wisdom that TV hinders children's learning.

While it links console games to "lower linguistic abilities,” the study concludes that computer usage improves children's literacy skills as they grow older.

The first generation of children immersed in new media -- known as "digital natives" -- benefit as much from using computers as they do from reading books.

"Computers seem to aid literacy, especially as children get older," lead author Michael Bittman, of the University of New England's school of behavioural, cognitive and social sciences, said yesterday.

Professor Bittman said the research conflicted with conventional advice to keep toddlers away from the TV. "All the literature indicated that, and the American Paediatrics Association advice is, don't use any television when the child is under two," he said.

"It was regarded a bit like sunlight and skin cancer -- they said that if you get a lot of TV it inhibits your print literacy.

"But what comes out of our study is that it's the parenting that makes the difference."

The researchers discovered that toddlers with a TV in their bedroom had a poorer vocabulary by the age of four. "Co-viewing, in contrast, is associated with better vocabulary," they conclude in their paper, prepared for the Journal of Education and due to be presented at the Growing Up in Australia conference in Melbourne next week. "Our findings indicate that among preschoolers, perhaps, any dose of media is safe provided the protective factors . . . are all in place."

Those "protective factors" included a stimulating home environment, sufficient family income and parental conversation and supervision.

"The children most at risk of delayed language acquisition are those from low socioeconomic backgrounds whose parents are not involved in their child's use of media," the paper says.

The researchers found that children with a computer in the home had a "better mastery of vocabulary" at the age of eight.

But the old-fashioned bedtime story still has the most influence over a child's success at school.

"Our results suggest that attention should be paid to encouraging the child's use of the oldest media of all -- print -- as this is closely associated with receptive vocabulary at age four years," the study says.

Professor Bittman said the research found that TV inhibited language and literacy development if children had a TV in their bedroom. "There is no support for the electronic babysitter," he said.

A Fresh Look at Brain-Based Education

By Eric P. Jensen


I have been a big advocate of Brain Based Education since the 1980's when I first read Leslie Harts book on Brain Based Education. It has been more than 20 years since it was first suggested that there could be connections between brain function and educational practice. In the face of all the evidence that has now accumulated to support this notion, Mr. Jensen advocates that educators take full advantage of the relevant knowledge from a variety of scientific disciplines. The full article is here


TEN YEARS ago John Bruer, executive administrator of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, began a series of articles critical of brain-based education. They included "Education and the Brain: A Bridge Too Far" (1997), "In Search of . . . Brain-Based Education" (1999), and, most recently, "On the Implications of Neuroscience Research for Science Teaching and Learning: Are There Any?" (2006).1 Bruer argued that educators should ignore neuroscience and focus on what psychologists and cognitive scientists have already discovered about teaching and learning. His message to educators was "hands off the brain research," and he predicted it would be 25 years before we would see practical classroom applications of the new brain research. Bruer linked brain-based education with tabloid mythology by announcing that, if brain-based education is true, then "the pyramids were built by aliens -- to house Elvis."2

Because of Bruer's and others' critiques, many educators decided that they were simply not capable of understanding how our brain works. Other educators may have decided that neuroscience has nothing to offer and that the prudent path would be simply to ignore the brain research for now and follow the yellow brick road to No Child Left Behind. Maybe some went so far as to say, "What's the brain got to do with learning?" But brain-based education has withstood the test of time, and an accumulating body of empirical and experiential evidence confirms the validity of the new model.


Many educationally significant, even profound, brain-based discoveries have occurred in recent years, such as that of neurogenesis, the production of new neurons in the human brain. It is highly likely that these discoveries would have been ignored if the education profession hadn't been primed, alerted, and actively monitoring cognitive neuroscience research and contemplating its implications and applications. Here, I wish to discuss how understanding the brain and the complementary research can have practical educational applications. I will make a case that narrowing the discussion to only neurobiology (and excluding other brain-related sciences) diminishes the opportunity for all of us to learn about how we learn and about better ways to teach. In addition, I will show how the synergy of biology, cognitive science, and education can support better education with direct application to schools.

In 1983 a new model was introduced that established connections between brain function and educational practice. In a groundbreaking book, Human Brain, Human Learning, Leslie Hart argued, among other things, that cognitive processes were significantly impaired by classroom threat.3 While not an earthshaking conclusion, the gauntlet was thrown down, as if to say, "If we ignore how the student brain works, we will risk student success." Many have tied brain function to new models either of thinking or of classroom pedagogy.4 A field has emerged known as "brain-based" education, and it has now been well over 20 years since this "connect the dots" approach began. In a nutshell, brain-based education says, "Everything we do uses our brain; let's learn more about it and apply that knowledge."

A discussion of this topic could fill books, but the focus here will be on two key issues. First, how can we define the terms, scope, and role of brain research in education? That is, what are the disciplines and relevant issues that should concern educators? These issues are multidisciplinary. Evidence will show that "brain-based" is not a loner's fantasy or narrow-field model; it's a significant educational paradigm of the 21st century. Second, what is the evidence, if any, that brain research can actually help educators do our job better? Is there now credibility to this burgeoning field? What issues have critics raised? Can the brain-based advocates respond to the critics in an empirical way?

Defining Brain-Based Education
Let's start this discussion with a simple but essential premise: the brain is intimately involved in and connected with everything educators and students do at school. Any disconnect is a recipe for frustration and potential disaster. Brain-based education is best understood in three words: engagement, strategies, and principles. Brain-based education is the "engagement of strategies based on principles derived from an understanding of the brain." Notice this definition does not say, "based on strategies given to us by neuroscientists." That's not appropriate. Notice it does not say, "based on strategies exclusively from neuroscience and no other discipline." The question is, Are the approaches and strategies based on solid research from brain-related disciplines, or are they based on myths, a well-meaning mentor teacher, or "junk science"? We would expect an educator to be able to support the use of a particular classroom strategy with scientific reasoning or studies.

Each educator ought to be professional enough to say, "Here's why I do what I do." I would ask: Is the person actually engaged in using what he or she knows, or does he or she simply have knowledge about it without actually using it? Are teachers using strategies based on the science of how our brain works? Brain-based education is about the professionalism of knowing why one strategy is used instead of another. The science is based on what we know about how our brain works. It's the professionalism to be research-based in one's practices. Keep in mind that if you don't know why you do what you do, it's less purposeful and less professional. It is probably your collected, refined wisdom. Nothing wrong with that, but some "collected, refined wisdom" has led to some bad teaching, too.

While I have, for years, advocated "brain-based" education, I never have promoted it as the "exclusive" discipline for schools to consider. That's narrow-minded. On the other hand, the brain is involved in everything we do at school. To ignore it would be irresponsible. Thus an appropriate question is, Where exactly is this research coming from?