Quotes & Sayings About Neuroplasticity

You fill a bucket drop by drop. You clear your mind thought by thought. You heal yourself moment by moment. Today I make one drop, clear one thought, and get present to one moment. And then I do it again. — Lisa Wimberger

Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity. — Norman Doidge

The life we lead, in other words, leaves its mark in the form of enduring changes in the complex circuitry of the brain-footprints of the experiences we have had, the actions we have taken. This is neuroplasticity. As Mike Merzenich asserted, the mechanisms of neuroplasticity "account for cortical contributions to our idiosyncratic behavioral abilities and, in extension, for the geniuses, the fools, and the idiot savants among us. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

The discovery that modified speech can drive neuroplasticity in the mature brain is just the most dramatic example (so far) of how sensory stimuli can rewire neuronal circuits. In fact, soon after Merzenich and Tallal published their results, other scientists began collecting data showing that, as in my own studies of OCD patients, brain changes do not require changes in either the quantity or the quality of sensory input. To the contrary: the brain could change even if all patients did was use mindfulness to respond to their thoughts differently. Applied mindfulness could change neuronal circuitry. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie: no nobleman dares now shock his greengrocer. — George Bernard Shaw

You may be singing 'Holy, holy, holy,' but if you aren't thinking about God while singing it, you are not worshiping. — Donald Whitney

Our brains have the ability to reorganize themselves by forming new neural connections throughout our lives. This ability is called neuroplasticity. — Elizabeth Thornton

Like most people who smoked umpteen cigarettes a day, I tasted only the first one. The succeeding umpteen minus one were a compulsive ritual which had no greater savour than the fumes of burning money. — Clive James

But you love books, then," Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.
"Oh, yes," Lestat said. "Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive."
"What a strange thing to say at your age," she laughed.
"No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope - - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved. — Anne Rice

Neuroplasticity contributes to both the constrained and unconstrained aspects of our nature. It renders our brains not only more resourceful, but also more vulnerable to outside influences. — Norman Doidge

Although neuroplasticity provides an escape from genetic determinism, a loophole for free thought and free will, it also imposes its own form of determinism on our behavior. As particular circuits in our brain strengthen through the repetition of a physical or mental activity, they begin to transform that activity into a habit. The paradox of neuroplasticity, observes Doidge, is that, for all the mental flexibility it grants us, it can end up locking us into "rigid behaviors."33 The chemically triggered synapses that link our neurons program us, in effect, to want to keep exercising the circuits they've formed. Once we've wired new circuitry in our brain, Doidge writes, "we long to keep it activated. — Nicholas Carr

Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless). — Susannah Cahalan

Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain. — Santiago Ramon Y Cajal

Moskowitz became a world leader in the use of neuroplasticity for treating pain only after making some discoveries while treating himself. A — Norman Doidge

There are two hundred and fifty-six names given in the Bible for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I suppose this was because He was infinitely beyond all that any one name could express. — Billy Sunday

Mental challenges cause an "adaptive response" to take place in the brain, just like a muscle. Challenges build axon-dendrite "transmitter-receiver" connections. Passive activities such as watching "reality" television do not stimulate or build these connections. We need to be actively involved with our activities, instead of being passive observers. Making and unmaking nerve cell connections (neuroplasticity) dictates how well the brain can handle stress. — Chris Hardy

Bad habits can be ingrained in our neurons as easily as good ones. Pascual-Leone observes that "plastic changes may not necessarily represent a behavioral gain for a given subject." In addition to being "the mechanism for development and learning," plasticity can be "a cause of pathology."35 It comes as no surprise that neuroplasticity has been linked to mental afflictions ranging from depression to obsessive-compulsive disorder to tinnitus. The more a sufferer concentrates on his symptoms, the deeper those symptoms are etched into his neural circuits. In the worst cases, the mind essentially trains itself to be sick. — Nicholas Carr

He's millions in debt. He hasn't stopped drinking and gambling since his father was assassinated. Brilliantly assassinated, Plagueis thought. — James Luceno

Neuroplasticity research showed that the brain changes its very structure with each different activity it performs, perfecting its circuits so it is better suited to the task at hand. — Naveen Jain

When Marvin Gaye made his music, he evoked this feeling that would reach everybody. — Charlie Puth

Something else emerges from this discussion about us as human individuals: we're not fixed, stable intellects riding along peering at the world through the lenses of our eyes like the pilots of people-shaped spacecraft. We are affected constantly by what's going on around us. Whether our flexibility is based in neuroplasticity or in less dramatic aspects of the brain, we have to start acknowledging that we are mutable, persuadable and vulnerable to clever distortions, and that very often what we want to be is a matter of constant effort rather than attaining a given state and then forgetting about it. Being human isn't like hanging your hat on a hook and leaving it there, it's like walking in a high wind: you have to keep paying attention. You have to be engaged with the world. — Nick Harkaway

Teaching is a great complement to writing. It's very social and gets you out of your own head. It's also very optimistic. It renews itself every year - it's a renewable resource. — Eleanor Catton

The key to transforming mental models is to interrupt the automatic responses that are driven by the old model and respond differently based on the new model. Each time you are able to do this, you are actually loosening the old circuit and creating new neural connections in your brain, often referred to as self-directed neuroplasticity. — Elizabeth Thornton

Whatever happens to a baby contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that its developing brain creates. As my colleague Bruce Perry explains it, the brain is formed in a "use-dependent manner."5 This is another way of describing neuroplasticity, the relatively recent discovery that neurons that "fire together, wire together." When a circuit fires repeatedly, it can become a default setting - the response most likely to occur. If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment. As infants and — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

In short, the brain has the power to recruit healthy neurons to perform the function of the damaged ones. Neuroplasticity enables the brain to reassign jobs. — Richard J. Davidson

When we are depleted our giving is empty. Today I take a moment to recharge, fill up with love for my life and all of its character so that I may give from a place of overflowing. — Lisa Wimberger

Because of the power of neuroplasticity, you can, in fact, reframe your world and rewire your brain so that you are more objective. You have the power to see things as they are so that you can respond thoughtfully, deliberately, and effectively to everything you experience. — Elizabeth Thornton

We must be learning if we are to feel fully alive, and when life, or love, becomes too predictable and it seems like there is little left to learn, we become restless - a protest, perhaps, of the plastic brain when it can no longer perform its essential task. — Norman Doidge

Life is a walk through the forest. Don't fear the trees, fear what lurks behind them. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Brains are tricky and adaptable organs. For all the 'neuroplasticity' allowing our brains to reconfigure themselves to the biases of our computers, we are just as neuroplastic in our ability to eventually recover and adapt. — Douglas Rushkoff

The essence of neuroplasticity is that what you practise you'll cultivate. If you are cruel and spiteful, you'll become expert at getting even crueller and more spiteful. If you practise being compassionate, you'll become more compassionate. That's how our brains work; the way we think or feel determines our wiring and what chemicals are coursing through our veins. If — Ruby Wax

Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas. — Andrew Weil

Let us strive, every year we live, to become more deeply acquainted with Scripture. — J.C. Ryle

Our brains renew themselves throughout life to an extent previously thought not possible. — Michael S. Gazzaniga