Brain Plasticity – Proof of Long Term Rewiring

§ March 10th, 2009 § Filed under brain research, neuroscience, plasticity § No Comments

Scientists in Tübingen, Germany have proven for the first time that widely-distributed networks of nerves in the brain can fundamentally reorganize as required…

A team from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen demonstrated long term reorganization in activities of large parts of the brain. By stimulating nerve cells in the hippocampus and measuring changes with functional magnetic resonance tomography (FMRt) and electrophysiology, the team tracked reorganization in large populations of nerve cells in the forebrain (active in memory and spatial awareness). This is the first experimental proof that large parts of the brain change when we learn. (Current Biology, March 10, 2009)

Before and after images of activity in the brain following plastic change

Link to longer story on InSciences.