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Home » Max Cynader: Enhancing The Plasticity of The Brain at TEDxStanleyPark (Transcript)

Max Cynader: Enhancing The Plasticity of The Brain at TEDxStanleyPark (Transcript)

Max Cynader

Full transcript of neuroscientist Max Cynader’s TEDx Talk: Enhancing The Plasticity of The Brain at TEDxStanleyPark Conference.

Listen to the  MP3 Audio here:  Enhancing the plasticity of the brain by Max Cynader at TEDxStanleyPark

 

Max Cynader – Director of the Brain Research Centre

Thank you very much for that generous introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Today my subject is “Enhancing Brain Plasticity.” And what I’m going to do in the next few minutes hopefully is to tell you a little bit about what brain plasticity is, how it works, what we’re doing to try to enhance it, and what you can do to enhance the plasticity of your brain. So at end of these 18 minutes, I hope that all of that will transpire.

So, what is brain plasticity? Well, brain plasticity is the process by which your brain changes depending on what has happened to it. And brain plasticity would include, for instance, memory. If you remember this lecture tomorrow — and I hope you will — it’s because of brain plasticity.

But brain plasticity is more than memory. It’s the process by which your brain is involved in learning, say a new skill, learning to ski or play Sudoku; do things like that. It’s the process by which you recover from brain damage of various sorts, for instance, after a neurotrauma or a stroke and it’s also how you adapt to the fact that you now weigh 20 pounds more after Christmas, and all your biomechanics are different, yet you still have to walk gracefully. So all of that is brain plasticity.

Now, most of what you need to learn about brain plasticity in this talk can be summarized in the following slogan, OK? So after this, you can just go to sleep — the slogan is “Neurons that fire together wire together.” Contiguity breeds connectivity.