thanks to pat siebert for posting a link to this on facebook. click the title of this post to view the article.
stunning news: the brain rewires itself within hours after experience! don't you just love science?
the article goes into how neurons forge connections with other neurons. here's the gist of it:
Studying neuron clusters from the neocortex of neonatal rats, Markram and Le Bé found that instead of growing preferentially towards specific receivers, neurons actually have no particular affinity for any other neuron, but instead remain in a state of perpetual readiness to reconfigure circuits. They found that over the course of just a few hours, connections are formed and re-formed many times.
"The circuitry of the brain is like a social network where neurons are like people, directly linked to only a few other people," explains Markram. "This finding indicates that the brain is constantly switching alliances and linking with new circles of "friends" to better process information."
In their samples, the rewiring process was occurring continuously at a slow pace. By exciting the sample with glutamate, they found that the rate increased markedly. This suggests that with a strong new experience, the brain accelerates its reconfiguration process, allowing new connections to be made, tested, and strengthened, and weaker ones removed so that the brain is quickly better adapted to the new situation.glutamate is also known as glutamic acid. it is a nonessential amino acid. it is the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate nervous system, according to wikipedia. it is involved in learning and memory.
food sources: MSG, animal and plant sources of protein, the seaweed kombu. usually no supplementation is needed.
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