An Amazing Story Of Our Brain's Plasticity

                                         Jodi Miller with her parents




I know that I am  a bit obsessed with our brain's plasticity but it a great recent discovery.  Until around the 1970s, an accepted idea across neuroscience was that the nervous system was essentially fixed throughout adulthood, both in terms of brain functions, as well as the idea that it was impossible for new neurons to develop after birth.
However as early as 1793, Italian anatomist Michele Vicenzo Malacarne described experiments in which he paired animals, trained one of the pair extensively for years, and then dissected both. He discovered that the cerebellums of the trained animals were substantially larger. But, these findings were eventually forgotten. The idea that the brain and its functions are not fixed throughout adulthood was proposed in 1890 by William James in The Principles of Psychology, his  ideas too were largely neglected.
Now we have lots of proof that our brains are indeed plastic or teachable.
I am in AWE of the Italian Vicenzo Malacarne and William James who were so far ahead of their time. Their thinking was so far ahead that most people could not even allow it's potential power in to their consciousness.
It saddens me that in this time  of  libraries television and  Internet, this time of wide spread education, that so many are still unaware of the brains potential.
This video on Youtube  Jody's Story is such an amazing story of just how plastic and teachable our brains are.  It has blown open my mind to new levels of possibility and hope .
What a truly wonderful time we live in . What amazing pioneers of medicine , doctors who see far ahead of their time and open us up to move ahead with them.
So incerdibly  Grateful to  Youtube for the video and to all those people who push out our understanding,  those whose work write and teach to inspire us too,  to reach beyond where we are now to live and  evolve to a fuller potential.