Chapter 2 - Harnessing Adaptability

Studies

The more time that a person had spent as a taxi driver, the larger the posterior hippocampi (not the same for bus drivers), which is related to the navigational skills that the job require
3-fingered Braille readers saw the brain areas of the brain devoted to those fingers grow and eventually overlap so that they couldn't tell which of the 3 fingers had been touched
By training their brain, older people with presbyopia could read letters that were 60% smaller than they could before due to changes in brain parts that interpret visual signals which de-blurred images
The region of the brain controlling the left hand was larger in the musicians than in the nonmusicians and the brain regions controlling the fingers had taken over a section of the brain region that was normally devoted to the palm
Retired London taxi drivers had less gray matter in their posterior hippocampi than did active taxi drivers

Key Terms

Homeostasis: the tendency of a system to act in a way that maintains its own stability
Bent-twig effect: training at early ages can actually shape the course of later development, leading to significant changes

General Information

There is no easy way to observe the resulting changes in your brain as it adapts to the increasing demands being placed on it
Both the function and the structure of the brain change in response to various sorts of mental training
Species of birds that store food in different places and must be able to remember the location of these various caches have relatively larger hippocampi
The brains of blind or deaf people rewire themselves to find new uses for the parts of the brain that are normally dedicated to processing sights or sounds
Blind people’s visual cortex lights up when reading Braille, helping them interpret the fingertip sensations
If you practice something enough, your brain will repurpose neurons to help with the task even if they already have another job to do
The brain’s structure and function are not fixed since they change in response to use
The human body has a preference for stability
Cells require a stable environment if they are to function effectively
When a body system is stressed to the point that homeostasis can no longer be maintained, the body responds with changes that are intended to reestablish homeostasis
If you don’t keep pushing and pushing some more, the body will settle into homeostasis, and you will stop improving
Learning a new skill is much more effective at triggering structural changes in the brain than simply continuing to practice a skill that one has already learned
Pushing too hard for too long can lead to burnout and ineffective learning
The cerebellum is larger in musicians than in nonmusicians
Musicians have more gray matter than nonmusicians
Long-term training results in changes in those parts of the brain that are relevant to the particular skill being developed
The inferior parietal lobule (mathematical calculations + visualization of objects in space) has significantly more gray matter in mathematicians than in nonmathematicians
Cortical thickness is greater in competitive divers than in nondivers in 3 brain regions that play a role in visualizing and controlling the movements of the body
Younger brains are more adaptable than adult brains so training can have larger effects in younger people
The earlier a child get started on the piano, the more white matter that pianist will have as an adult
In many cases, people who have developed one skill or ability to an extraordinary degree seem to have regressed in another area
The cognitive and physical changes caused by training require upkeep
The traditional approach to learning is not designed to challenge homeostasis
Using deliberate practice, you can challenge homeostasis