

| PocketAdvisorbot Manage Human Brain I have been reading Norman Doige, MD The Brain that changes itself. A critical period is a length of time during which the brain remains plastic, which means it can learn a particular task. When a human child is very young, they learn to see and to fuse two eyes into one 3D image. If you sew a kitten’s one eye shut during its critical period, it will never learn to see. Monkey experiments: If you cut the afferent nerves in one arm that allows a monkey to feel, he will stop using that arm and instead use the arm which still has feeling. If you cut the afferent nerves in both arms, the chimp will continue to use both arms since he has to use something and they are both the same. If you cut the afferent nerves in only one arm and put the other arm in a sling to prevent it from being used, the monkey will use the numb arm. Although you may feel sorry for the monkeys upon whom these experiments were performed, the results overturned previous incorrect theories of how the nervous system works and led to the development of Constraint Induced therapy for people with strokes. In patients who are treated with Constraint Induced Therapy, their “good arm” will be restrained for 90% of their waking hours. Many people previously left as partially paralyzed are now learning to use their affected limbs normally. The fellow who discovered this method lost his grants, all his money and was unable to accomplish anything for about 12 years because PETA sued him for cutting the monkey’s nerves. This obviously delayed the rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of people. The new equipment has been tested and you can read the excellent results at: http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/36/6/1301 This equipment is in the category of a Virtual Advisor. Next |