Plastic of the brain. Ten years ago, Philip Martinez was involved in a motorcycle accident, in which the nerves in his left hand were destroyed, leading to amputation. However, after the amputation he was haunted by his hand amputated, as if it existed, but was building and in excruciating pain. He finally found Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California at San Diego, who had done research on the phenomenon that Martinez had - "phantom members".
To help amputees to deal with their ghost pain, Ramachandran has created an ingenious solution called a mirror box, designed to take the brain to think that it is working with the phantom limb. This is an area with two compartments separated by a vertical mirror. Martinez placed his arms good in one of the two compartments, and imagined that his amputated hand was in the other compartment, a certain angle the mirror box allowed him to see the image of his right hand, as if his amputated limb was. As he moved his right hand while viewing the image, it was not only able to "see" the amputated member, but it felt as well. This seems almost as magical as a fantasy. In Harry Potter and the sorcerers, Harry first given the wizards in his pocket through the mirror of Erised the, before he actually found in his pocket. Similarly, Ramachandran mirror box can someone see what they want to happen before that their brains making actually arrive.
First, Martinez considered that the phantom limb was unfrozen and moving again only when you look at the reflection. When he closed his eyes, the painful sensation returned. After four weeks of work with the box ten minutes a day, apparently permanent pain has been corrected. The mirror box had caused the brain to believe that the non-existent member starts to work again, relieve pain and uncomfortable sensation. The brain had repeated itself - the body he pretended that the brain is.
Synaptic plasticity is the characteristic of the brain that allows him to adapt, reconnect, and change its structure, similar to the ability of plastic mould and change form. The plastic brain defies the theory for a long time that the brain drain, especially adult brains, is rigid structures.
In the past, neurologists has made many studies to identify what part of the brain controls what body of the function or the action, also known as brain mapping. Previously accepted wisdom was that these maps of brain, once established during childhood, may never be modified; a particular area of the adult brain can control that a certain part of the body so that all regions of the brain maps were immutable. It would be as if the borders of the country had been definitively established since the night of the time. However, discoveries of synaptic plasticity in the beginning of the 1970s, led to a new view-brain maps can extend, lower, and becomes more specific to certain sensory input and motor functions. Ramachandran witnessed changes in brain maps when he plays the phantom pain patient. The patient felt not only zero in his cheek, but in the ghost and member. Confirmed through brain imaging, Ramachandran found that the map of the brain branch had meshes with the map of the brain plays. As an emperor with a desire to AVID to acquire territory, map of the cheek encroached on the map of the branch.
Before designing the illusory mirror box, Ramachandran found the map of the brain of the phantom members. He noted that many amputees patients had the blade in a sling before amputation, which caused the map of the brain to adapt to the State "frozen" branch. A branch in good health, the brain receives the motor and sensory outputs of the completion of an action of signage, however, after a limb is amputated, the brain no longer receives these messages. The brain continues to believe that the Member is frozen because he was not reported otherwise. If a tree falls in a forest, but nobody was there to hear the noise, the tree is really to make a noise? The industry has really amputated if the brain has not said? According to the map of the brain, the branch was still there, but because he did not, the brain has pushed harder and harder to try to receive a signal from output, leading to the excruciating pain "ghost". Knowledge of the evolution of the brain maps combined with the identification of the ghost map, to the treatment of phantom pain.
The mirror box, another "trick" to change the brain is visualization. Visualization has gained popularity as an alternative means to improve any jurisdiction where it is impossible to practice and it has now been proven scientifically through synaptic plasticity. Scientific Pascual - Leone Harvard Medical School studied two groups of people, those who were physically at the piano and those who dreamt up simply practicing the piano. The brains of the two groups of people have been constantly mapped to the same intervals and showed similar changes. The group who simply imagined piano was able to play almost close and the group with the physical practice and had more than a session of practice physical to catch up. Repetitive imagination of action strengthens neuronal connections of this action similar to the way in which the physical practice, resulting in a physical improvement.
When I used to train competitive tennis and has been learning a new shot, my coach would say "imagine this perfect ball in detail several times and it will come more easily you." I did not appreciate the advice he gave me until now. "He fake, until make it you" seems to have the potential to help anyone what anyone, whether through the mirror or the viewing area. Synaptic plasticity is introduce magic into the world of science, as a sprinkle of Tinkerbell pixie dust. Plastic of the brain
