Rewiring brain

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A lot of people here say that you can't rewire your brain. I don't think that's true because it's scientifically proven that your brain is plastic.

It would be complicated though. I mean, in theory it might be possible but that would mean growing the size of neurons and diminishing their number in the limbic system, identifying and restructuring abnormal tissue cell patches in the frontal cortex, creating neuron groups in the cerebellum, reducing initial growth in the frontal cortex, and possibly other things so who knows, maybe someday they will be able to do all that. Creating new synapse connections is possible so maybe that can help as well.

It can be done but it takes hard work and practice. When you learn any kind of skill, your brain is building/strengthening particular pathways. You are essentially making your brain better at whatever it is you do on a frequent basis, your brain will begin to optimize until you can practically do whatever it is in your sleep.

This can tie into mental illness, the longer you are depressed, the more your brain optimizes for having those kind of thoughts, so they come more easily.

But there may be certain things you just can't practice, certain skills you can never gain if you were born without them. For example cats learn to see as kittens, if you deny them the sight of vertical lines during these formative years, they will struggle to see them as adults.

The brain is able to change it's connections easily in some ways, but in another ways it's also quite rigid. It is comparable to a system of natural agents which learn from input signals and change their output over time. The agents will constantly seek behavioural patterns that provide an advantage for itself. Synapses will form and some will dissipate to accommodate those experiences over time, however certain synaptic structures are more easily trained than others.

The brain is much like this. You can train yourself many things, from language to social interaction to complex sciences. Some people are better in one and others better in the other because their wiring is naturally more prone to take the advantageous route in certain fields. These are very plastic concepts because they are dependant on the external factors where a lot of random input from the outside can be interpreted and used in a way much like dynamic agents. At every moment the brain is trying to re-write itself to accommodate positive experience and to avoid negative experiences in this way. Your senses and your internal interpretation of those senses is used as a measure for restructuring your brain.

Then there are behaviours that are very hard or impossible to change. For example you cannot train yourself to see the world only in black and white, because the visual centre of the brain is not as plastic as other parts of the brain. If these parts of the brain change it's usually during the first few months or years of development where it still has to learn to interpret visuals properly. An example of something that is hard but not impossible to learn is muscle memory, it is something that you have to repeat over and over so the synaptic connections for this behaviour gradually get stronger.

I think your topic goes out to if you can re-write the brain to get rid of autistic traits. Yes and no, first we have to see that autism is not just a behavioural difference that can be trained but also a structural difference in the brain. For example it has been shown that the brain of people with autism have an increased amount of synaptic connections with auditory and visual centre to other parts of the brain. This is typical for visual thinking, audial thinking and sensory overload which are all common in people with autism. These are typical traits that are non-plastic, this is not something you can train to get or get rid off. Then there are of course things you can actually change: your conscious behaviour, your social skills, your speaking, your knowledge, etc. The thing is that the parts which you cannot re-structure directly affect your ability to change around the wiring in some other part of the brain, this makes it especially hard for people with autism to learn these things. Learning good social skills requires a lot of dedication and repetition of both failures and good experiences, but is certainly not impossible.

( I believe there have been thesis in the past linking different visual and auditory wiring in people with autism to difficulties in mimicking behaviour, which could explain delayed language development and early social development issues which are both very much based on mimicking parents and peers. I'm not sure if there has been any scientific proof for this yet but I'd be interested to see it if anyone happens to know. )

One of my aspie friends told me he had rewired his brain. I feel I have rewired mine but my husband disagrees. He said I just matured with my thinking and have gotten more experience. People may say I have adapted. But there are parts I may never change. I could never get my brain to learn the same way as others.

Messiaen a French composer C20th actually developed synaesthesia in his mid to late adulthood. He was imprisoned during WWII in a dark cell and during that time developed fully fledged auditory-colour synaesthesia. This was experienced as a completely internally consistent system which he applied within his compositions.

Turning a non synaesthete into a synaesthete permanently requires complex rewiring. The cross activation theory of synaesthesia actually suggests that its caused by the concerned brain regions being linked. Disinhibited feedback suggests that brain signals travelling from higher order sensory processing regions feedback into the earlier processing regions which can lead to senses being cross linked.

Not quite to the extent you suggest, they have found the brain has some plasticity which means it is possible to change up some things or improve on some skills via willingly making changes to the brain or sometimes the brain compensates for things like people who have survived and lived without parts of their brain that the rest of the brain ended up compensating for...however there is nothing proving one could entirely rewire their brain or entirely fix any problems within it...studies just show some improvements can be made since the brain can be changed to an extent.

I just feel if people go to far with the plastic brain mindset then that will just cause more accusations of 'not trying hard enough' when it comes to people being unable to entirely 'overcome' their mental disorder or disorders. Since then everyone can argue 'well you just need to try harder to change your brain to being more normal.'

It's about understanding how sections of the brain inter-communicate and intra-communicate. Pathways between neurons in one section of the brain can be rewired. But pathways between say the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are fixed highways of a set capacity.

It's for this reason that Introverts and Extraverts will always remain Introverts or Extroverts. Just as ASD people can 'act normal,' Introverts and Extraverts can learn to act like each other, but it's not who they are. Introverts will react to overstimulus because the pathway between sections is physically wider, so the amygdala can overreact before the prefrontal cortex gains control. And with Extraverts having a narrower pathway, they seek more stimulus. Oversimplified, for sure, but you get the idea.

I don't know about rewiring the human brain. But I know that they have computer chips out there that can rewire themselves. take a look.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-prog ... gate_array