Neural Plasticity

Paper Summary:

This paper explains how experience alters the synaptic organization of the brain in species as diverse as fruit flies and humans and, although evidence that these changes are functionally meaningful is more difficult to collect, there is little doubt that changes in synaptic organization are correlated with changes in behavior. It looks at how activity initiated by experience or behavior could, therefore, increase the activity of genetic mechanisms responsible for dendritic and synaptic growth and, ultimately, behavioral change.

From the Paper:

"Therefore, animals with extensive dendritic growth, relative to untreated animals show facilitated performance on numerous types of behavioral measures in contrast to animals with atrophy in dendritic arborization that show a decline in behavioral capacity (Whishaw Pp). Similarly, factors that enhance dendritic growth, nerve growth factor, facilitate behavioral outcome, while factors that block dendritic growth, brain injury at birth in rats, retard functional outcomes (Whishaw Pp). Although studies have stressed that changes in dendritic morphology, there are multiple, and likely dissociable, changes in the neuron morphology that correlate behavioral change, including "increases in dendritic length, dendritic branching pattern, spine density, synapse number, synapse size, glial size and number, and metabolic activity" (Whishaw Pp)."

More papers on Neural Plasticity:

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