This was a fascinating and exceptionally informative read. Our brains are capable of so much if we know how to use them. My favorite take away was "Things that fire together wire together." It goes back to Pavlov's dogs, I suppose: If you ring a bell and present food, pretty soon the dogs will begin to salivate when they hear a bell because those things go together. This explains how people can wire their brains incorrectly (getting pleasure out of disgusting things, etc) and how it is 100% true that we can re-wire those things. It takes a lot of time and effort to re-wire reactions, but it can be intentionally and specifically done. The two most important factors for changing brain function are real intent (focusing and desiring the change) and oxytocin. Oxytocin makes the connections between neurons more easily broken. Oxytocin is a hormone that is released during happy/peaceful/loving times, stimulated by things such as touch, seeing pictures of your baby, intimate physical relationships, and eating.
So many of the maladies that face adults result from neurons being wired incorrectly as a child. Truly, the family is the central unit of society, and a family that functions properly has a much greater advantage in turning out children who will function properly in society.
Neuro plasticity can erase phantom limbs, reduce the effects of autism, strokes and ADD, cure retardation, masochism, pornography addictions, and obsessions, and increase the pleasure we get from physical and spiritual relationships. It affects every part of our lives and is a powerful aspect of our brains to have an understanding of. The "talking cure," or the benefits of using a psychologist, are proved through plasticity research.
I recommend skipping the disgusting depths of pornography discussed from pages 102-112.
Here are some quotes from the book that I want to remember:
Page 41-2: "Up through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a classical education often included rote memorization of long poems in foreign languages, which strengthened the auditory memory (hence thinking in language) and an almost fanatical attention to handwriting, which probably helped strengthen motor capacities and thus not only helped handwriting but added speed and fluency to reading and speaking. Often a great deal of attention was paid to exact elocution and to perfecting the pronunciation of words. Then in the 1960s educators dropped such traditional exercises from the curriculum, because they were too rigid, boring, and "not relevant." But the loss of these drills has been costly; they may have been the only opportunity that many students had to systematically exercise the brain function that gives us fluency and grace with symbols. For the rest of us, their disappearance may have contributed to the general decline of eloquence, which requires memory and a level of auditory brainpower unfamiliar to us now. ... Today many of the most learned among us... prefer the omnipresent PowerPoint presentation--the ultimate compensation for a weak premotor cortex."
Page 213: "Everything your "immaterial" mind imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses and a microscopic level. Each time you imagine moving your finders across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain." This has powerful implications for positive self-talk/image and for pornography addicts. Things that fire together wire together, and we can change what we allow to fire together. Thoughts are the pathways to action. A beautiful and frightening truth.
Page 243: "Because our neuroplasticity can give rise to both mental flexibility and mental rigidity, we tend to underestimate our own potential for flexibility, which most of us experience only in flashes.
"Freud was right when he said that the absence of plasticity seemed related to force of habit."
Page 252: "This theory, that novel environments may trigger neurogenesis, is consistent with Merzenich's discovery that in order to keep the brain fit, we must learn something new, rather than simply replaying already-mastered skills.
... "Thus physical exercise and learning work in complementary ways: the first to make new stem cells, the second to prolong their survival."
Page 255: "Simply walking, at a good pace, stimulates the growth of new neurons."
Page 256: "Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment..."
Page 308: "Listening to an audio book leaves a different set of memories than reading does. A newscast heard on the radio is processed differently from the same words read in a newspaper." ... each medium creates a different sensory and semantic experience--and, we might add, develops different circuits in the brain."
Page 309: "The cost [of watching TV] is that such activities as reading, complex conversation, and listening to lectures become more difficult."
So many of the maladies that face adults result from neurons being wired incorrectly as a child. Truly, the family is the central unit of society, and a family that functions properly has a much greater advantage in turning out children who will function properly in society.
Neuro plasticity can erase phantom limbs, reduce the effects of autism, strokes and ADD, cure retardation, masochism, pornography addictions, and obsessions, and increase the pleasure we get from physical and spiritual relationships. It affects every part of our lives and is a powerful aspect of our brains to have an understanding of. The "talking cure," or the benefits of using a psychologist, are proved through plasticity research.
I recommend skipping the disgusting depths of pornography discussed from pages 102-112.
Here are some quotes from the book that I want to remember:
Page 41-2: "Up through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a classical education often included rote memorization of long poems in foreign languages, which strengthened the auditory memory (hence thinking in language) and an almost fanatical attention to handwriting, which probably helped strengthen motor capacities and thus not only helped handwriting but added speed and fluency to reading and speaking. Often a great deal of attention was paid to exact elocution and to perfecting the pronunciation of words. Then in the 1960s educators dropped such traditional exercises from the curriculum, because they were too rigid, boring, and "not relevant." But the loss of these drills has been costly; they may have been the only opportunity that many students had to systematically exercise the brain function that gives us fluency and grace with symbols. For the rest of us, their disappearance may have contributed to the general decline of eloquence, which requires memory and a level of auditory brainpower unfamiliar to us now. ... Today many of the most learned among us... prefer the omnipresent PowerPoint presentation--the ultimate compensation for a weak premotor cortex."
Page 213: "Everything your "immaterial" mind imagines leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses and a microscopic level. Each time you imagine moving your finders across the keys to play the piano, you alter the tendrils in your living brain." This has powerful implications for positive self-talk/image and for pornography addicts. Things that fire together wire together, and we can change what we allow to fire together. Thoughts are the pathways to action. A beautiful and frightening truth.
Page 243: "Because our neuroplasticity can give rise to both mental flexibility and mental rigidity, we tend to underestimate our own potential for flexibility, which most of us experience only in flashes.
"Freud was right when he said that the absence of plasticity seemed related to force of habit."
Page 252: "This theory, that novel environments may trigger neurogenesis, is consistent with Merzenich's discovery that in order to keep the brain fit, we must learn something new, rather than simply replaying already-mastered skills.
... "Thus physical exercise and learning work in complementary ways: the first to make new stem cells, the second to prolong their survival."
Page 255: "Simply walking, at a good pace, stimulates the growth of new neurons."
Page 256: "Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment..."
Page 308: "Listening to an audio book leaves a different set of memories than reading does. A newscast heard on the radio is processed differently from the same words read in a newspaper." ... each medium creates a different sensory and semantic experience--and, we might add, develops different circuits in the brain."
Page 309: "The cost [of watching TV] is that such activities as reading, complex conversation, and listening to lectures become more difficult."
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