LettersOnPages
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This is a reprint of my review of The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. The original can be found at Letters on Pages (address in my signature)!
Title: The Brain That Changes Itself
Author: Norman Doidge, M.D.
Publisher: Penguin (2007)
I was asked to read and review The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. At first, I wasn’t all that excited to read this book because the title seems kind of “hippie-ish” (note: I know that is not a real word. But I’m using it anyway. So there.) But as I started to read the book I realized it was a fascinating look at the plasticity of the brain (otherwise known as neuroplasticity) and written by a very accomplished psychiatrist. Doidge does a really nice job explaining things so that even dumb people like me can understand it. Also, the stories that he includes in each chapter are really interesting and inspirational.
The basic idea of brain plasticity is that our brains are constantly changing and adapting. The slightly more in depth explanation is that brain activity that is associated with functions of the body can be moved to other parts of the brain. Got it? What? That doesn’t make sense? OK...let’s try again. The old assumption of how the brain works was that all of your functions were localized into a specific region of the brain. And that is still partly correct. For instance, generally your speech control is located in what is called “Broca’s Area” (named after Broca!). What researchers/doctors/other smart people found out was that even when Broca’s Area was damaged, people could still learn to talk! That may not sound all that exciting, but what it means is that other parts of your brain will pick up functions (like speech) normally controlled by the now damaged area. Your brain is constantly changing. All you have to do is re-learn your lost function. (It's that easy!)
The book is filled with fantastic stories of people who have overcome terrible illness through brain rehabilitation. One particular person was able to completely rehabilitate from a stroke. Normal stroke rehab doesn’t allow for this type of recovery because it doesn’t assume that a near-full recovery can be made. But when rehab includes brain exercises, it becomes far easier to re-learn those “lost” functions. This type of rehabilitation was not thought possible until smart people figured out the brain is plastic.
There are many more stories of really cool experiments where people have accomplished things never thought possible (blind people seeing through touch sensations in their back, experiencing a feeling when a dummy hand is touched, etc..) Basically, the brain is pretty awesome.
Like I said before, it is written in an easy to read manner, so you don't have to be really smart to learn it. This book was really good and I would recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the human body and how it works.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Title: The Brain That Changes Itself
Author: Norman Doidge, M.D.
Publisher: Penguin (2007)
I was asked to read and review The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. At first, I wasn’t all that excited to read this book because the title seems kind of “hippie-ish” (note: I know that is not a real word. But I’m using it anyway. So there.) But as I started to read the book I realized it was a fascinating look at the plasticity of the brain (otherwise known as neuroplasticity) and written by a very accomplished psychiatrist. Doidge does a really nice job explaining things so that even dumb people like me can understand it. Also, the stories that he includes in each chapter are really interesting and inspirational.
The basic idea of brain plasticity is that our brains are constantly changing and adapting. The slightly more in depth explanation is that brain activity that is associated with functions of the body can be moved to other parts of the brain. Got it? What? That doesn’t make sense? OK...let’s try again. The old assumption of how the brain works was that all of your functions were localized into a specific region of the brain. And that is still partly correct. For instance, generally your speech control is located in what is called “Broca’s Area” (named after Broca!). What researchers/doctors/other smart people found out was that even when Broca’s Area was damaged, people could still learn to talk! That may not sound all that exciting, but what it means is that other parts of your brain will pick up functions (like speech) normally controlled by the now damaged area. Your brain is constantly changing. All you have to do is re-learn your lost function. (It's that easy!)
The book is filled with fantastic stories of people who have overcome terrible illness through brain rehabilitation. One particular person was able to completely rehabilitate from a stroke. Normal stroke rehab doesn’t allow for this type of recovery because it doesn’t assume that a near-full recovery can be made. But when rehab includes brain exercises, it becomes far easier to re-learn those “lost” functions. This type of rehabilitation was not thought possible until smart people figured out the brain is plastic.
There are many more stories of really cool experiments where people have accomplished things never thought possible (blind people seeing through touch sensations in their back, experiencing a feeling when a dummy hand is touched, etc..) Basically, the brain is pretty awesome.
Like I said before, it is written in an easy to read manner, so you don't have to be really smart to learn it. This book was really good and I would recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the human body and how it works.
Rating: 4 out of 5