Now before we dive into this there is some technicality I need to explain about neuroplasticity what
it is and what we will not see in this course. You see when we take neuroplasticity we see three types
of change happening in the brain.
First there are the chemical changes.
These are changes in the amount or concentration of chemicals in the brain.
These changes appear quickly.
They lead to short term improvements in short term memory or even in motor skills but these changes
fade almost as quickly as they occur.
Next day well you're pretty much back to square one.
It's what happens when you do something you just once.
There won't be any lasting change in your brain it's just chemical fireworks.
You go ooh and ahh.
But that's pretty much it.
And that is also what we're going to do with the exercises in this course they will take you out of
your comfort zone and you'll get a nice chemical kick out of it but there won't be any lasting impacts
unless you go to next level. At the next level.
Are the structural changes in the brain.The pyrotechnics of the chemical changes are only step one.
Repeat an action several times over a period of time and we start to see how the structure itself of
our brain starts to change.
Dendrites are growing and new connections are made.
This leads to long term improvement in memory and motor skills.
Now this is the type of change we are aiming at when I'll be talking about habits and procrastination
and changing our memories.
However this structural change takes time.
It doesn't happen overnight as we will see.
It needs repetition over and over and over again.
Now the third and last type of change we see happening in our brain are functional changes.
This is the most impressive one actually. We see whole parts of our brain who were allocated at doing
one thing and then they start to change and are doing other things.
This typically happens when brain damage occurred and our brain re-arranges itself to be able to function
again. Now in attachment you'll find a link to an impressive story of a little girl who lives with only
half a brain.
I kid you not: half a brain.
She had to go through a rough adaptation period.
But now as you'll see she's fine.
There are actually quite some stories like these of people living with half a brain and they seem to
function normally.
Those are perfect examples of these functional changes in the brain.
It happens quite frequently that for example after a stroke people can't use a hand or a leg anymore.
And in order to restore the connection between the brain and the limb a structural change in the brain
is needed.
Now some specialized rehabilitation programs do exist.
They take time and a lot of effort.
But before we knew about neuroplasticity if someone lost the use of their right hand for example,
the rehabilitation program would have focused on helping the person do the things with his or her left hand.
right now.
Not anymore.
On the contrary, the rehabilitation program would limit the use of the healthy hand forcing the brain
to find a new way to create a new neuronal path towards a partial or even a full recovery of the use
of that right hand. Now,
exciting and hopeful as this is, this course is not a recovery program.
It is far beyond the scope of discourse as we will not look into how to create functional change in
our brain. Still, manipulating neuroplasticity for recovery of function has enormous and exciting potential
in neurology. But neuroplasticity has also its limits.
People with heavy brain and spinal cord injury would be known otherwise to heal over time without external
intervention.
Now that might be the case with mild injuries but we should stay realistic. For severe cases,
full recovery will stay out of reach.
Sharpen your mind.
Hey there's just one thing I quickly need to go over with you.
You see, in a moment you're very likely going to be asked by Udemy to leave a review here.
Well, ratings go from one to five stars with four and a half being considered the normal, average, good
course, here on this platform.
Now I understand that for some of you it is still way too early to have an opinion about the content
of this course, right.
Well in that case you can just choose to skip the review altogether too a later moment.
I'm saying this because while I've had people leaving three stars thinking it meant something like neutral
three stars means this course is really really bad.
Never buy a course on Udemy with a three stars average.
So if you feel you haven't seen enough of this course.
Well, just skip the review button and click on Ask me later.