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The Brain That Changes Itself (2007)

Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

by Norman Doidge

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One-Sentence Summary

The Brain That Changes Itself is an informative and readable journey into the history, science and consequences of recent research in neuroplasticity - the brain's incredible ability to change and reorganise itself - by psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and researcher, Norman Doidge. (427 pages)

Contents

1. One-Sentence Summary

2. The Brain That Changes Itself Summary

3. The Brain That Changes Itself Contents

4. Best The Brain That Changes Itself Quotes

6. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Note: This The Brain That Changes Itself summary is part of an ongoing project to summarise the Best Learning Books of all time.

Note: This The Brain That Changes Itself summary is a stub. I'll write a full summary later. For now, you'll find enough meta-data here to help you decide if it's worth reading the book.

The Brain That Changes Itself Summary

In the past, the brain has been thought of as mostly hard-wired and unchanging. But evidence is increasingly confirming that it’s more malleable than ever imagined.

In fact, the brain is less like a machine, and more like a complex organism. It continuously adapts to the unique combination of stimuli, thoughts and activities we encounter in life.

This structural and functional neuroplasticity takes place in every part of the brain and at every level of its organisation – from the activity of its cells and neural networks to the specialisation of its regions and hemispheres.

And though heightened in critical periods (e.g., youth, falling in love, beginning parenting) and reduced in others (e.g., after adolescence, in senesce), neuroplasticity never stops – the brain changes constantly, throughout our entire lives.

We are just now beginning to understand the structures (e.g., neuroglia, hippocampus, basal forebrain), pathways (e.g., LTP, LTD, myelination) and chemicals (e.g., BDNF, oxytocin, dopamine) that enable and regulate neuroplasticity.

And yet this understanding has already and will have significant consequences for rethinking many aspects of our lives – from our innate or acquired abilities to our characters and even our sexual preferences.

What’s more, from blindness and deafness to learning disabilities, autism, strokes, chronic pain and Alzheimer’s, there are few dark corners of mental health into which the science of neuroplasticity doesn’t promise to bring light and hope.

It is this story and a glimpse into just these consequences that Doidge offers us in 11 chapters, two appendices and extensive notes in his excellent book, The Brain That Changes Itself.

A key takeaway for your day? Your brain is a muscle – exercise and mental activity strengthen and sustain both it and its ongoing ability to learn.

If you keep learning – no matter who or how old you are – you will retain the ability to learn. If you stop learning, you will lose that ability, along with everything else it enables.

The Brain That Changes Itself Contents

The physiology and pharmacology of neuroplasticity was my absolute favourite topic at university. Nonetheless, three hours was far too little time to get fully into this wonderfully well-researched and well-written book. I’ll definitely be back for a fuller book summary later.

For now, here’s a peek at the contents to remind you (and me) of what’s inside:

Preface – An Introduction to Neuroplasticity
Ch. 1 – A Woman Perpetually Falling
Rescued by the Man Who Discovered the Plasticity of Our Senses
Ch. 2 – Building Herself a Better Brain
A Woman Labeled “Retarded” Discovers How to Heal Herself
Ch. 3 – Redesigning the Brain
A Scientist Changes Brains to Sharpen Perception and Memory, Increase Speed of Thought and Heal Learning Problems
Ch. 4 – Acquiring Tastes and Loves
What Neuroplasticity Teaches Us About Sexual Attraction and Love
Ch. 5 – Midnight Resurrections
Stroke Victims Learn to Move and Speak Again
Ch. 6 – Brain Lock Unlocked
Using Plasticity to stop Worries, Obsessions, Compulsions and Bad Habits
Ch. 7 – Pain
The Dark Side of Plasticity
Ch. 8 – Imagination
How Thinking Makes It So
Ch. 9 – Turning Our Ghosts into Ancestors
Psychoanalysis as Neuroplastic Therapy
Ch. 10 – Rejuvenation
The Discovery of the Neuronal Stem Cell and Lessons for Preserving Our Brains
Ch. 11 – More than the Sum of Her Parts
A Woman Shows Us How Radically Plastic the Brain Can Be
Appendix 1 – The Culturally Modified Brain
Appendix 2 – Plasticity and the Idea of Progress
Notes and References – Detailed and interesting notes, by page and point.

Best The Brain That Changes Itself Quotes

These The Brain That Changes Itself quotes come from The Art of Living's ever-growing central library of thoughts, anecdotes, notes, and inspirational quotes.

"Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history."