Rewiring the Brain: The Promise and Peril of Neuroplasticity

Wanna neuro-plastificate your brain ? Learn a musical instrument, or two or three - for me, it’s keyboard , bass and percussion- and you’ll witness small miracles every day, like being able to play a piece on the piano with both hands in the morning when you could only do it with separate hands the night before… I’m almost 69, I started about 10 years ago for piano and percu - bass is very recent - and it’s the most rewarding activity I’ve ever done. And if I can do it, so can you !

Neuroplasticity is the most incredible part of neuroscience ......That still needs to be explored .......

I have been training my brain to learn new things for years. I studied the neuroscience of learning about 15 years ago and have used that understanding to train many other skills and competencies. I use graduated intervals, a mix of undirected and directed learning and I ramp up my interest in something before I learn it. I also use some form of journaling and teaching others what I have learned to solidify memories. I have found there is an initial state of ignorance which is the hardest to punch through but after a while there is a growing interest in the subject. There is also a few plateau's where it would be easy to rest on one's own laurels but its important not to become convinced of one's own comprehension prematurely. There is a qualitative difference between something thoroughly understood and something that is vaguely conceived. I use this as a guide to evaluate my understanding. Its also important to refresh your memory of things every now and again. For example I learned a few languages but never encounter them in my day-to-day life, I have to deliberately flip over to watching news or reading in those languages to keep them fresh.

Story of my life, multiple TBI's, 2 with brain bleeds, countless concussions growing up, the strange thing was I picked up things in my 40's that I was horrible at in my teens and 20's. I became semi fluent in math and science. I attest that it was all the reading I've done and staying physically active so the brain could heal, repair, grow and produce new pathways that are better than some in my 20's. The brain, body and life itself are truly amazing. God gave me the strength to never give up, he is in every cell in my body 🙏 I spent time in jail and believe that stress can be used as a precursor to hyper regeneration, or I'd call it open window period, I lived it.

This presentation is a keeper! As a lifelong illustrator and a very late (68-71) piano student, I appreciated the discussion of intensive, prolonged practice that is necessary to attain expert levels. The patients who are motivated to play with sharks will be working their asses off. It looks like 'fun' at a glance, but the patients will have to push through the point where it gets old and just do it.

1:15:55 "Critical periods are a moment of heightened plasticity, but they are also windows of vulnerability, and if they continue for too long then you may, in fact, incur damage." This inescapably reminds me of the psychonaut maxim from Alan Watts: "if you get the message, hang up the phone".

Thank you, World Science Festival!💚🌈🌸🎵

At 62 years old I weighed almost 200lbs when I took up a game in VR called Beat Saber, and for me, it has been life changing. I have reached some of the highest levels of play and it can be physically and mentally intense. Now at 65 I weigh 122lbs and have the abs and body I have wanted my whole adult life (irony of life). I spent a year running and weight lifting to prepare for a half marathon with my daughter and never achieved results that I have with this VR game. There are a ton of benefits just from the weight loss; better balance, flexibility and strength. I can do more pull ups today than when I was 13. The physical changes have been incredible, however, I feel there have been equivalent changes in my brain as well. In the midst of play I came to realize that my brain processes information from 3 screens; the first is what I am visually seeing and that screen is in color, screen 2, which is what I am actually thinking about, and screen 3 which is constantly cross referencing (at an extremely fast rate). Both 2 and 3 are in black and white. When I become distracted I now know I am drifting too far into screens 2 and 3. Beat Saber is a fast paced game of patterns so I have improved my ability to spot patterns, in my own behavior and others behavior to the point of feeling like I spent a good part of my life ignorant to patterns that should have been obvious. I hope a ton a research is being done in this area because I KNOW that my brain is being rewired and it is definitely for the better!

YouTube needs more of Brian Greene science video shows.

Brian Greene, you have made humanity a bit better by sharing the love of knowledge with the rest of us. Thank you truly.