Study Shows Brain Reconfigures Itself And Be Trained For Better Results

QHow many times have we heard that once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget? This is thanks to our brain’s neuroplasticity, which is the power it has to adapt its architecture and functions based on internal and external stimuli, such as listening to music. “Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to adapt, of the neuron, for example, to form new connections. In other words, it begins to communicate with other neurons with which it did not communicate before”, explains Raphael Spera, physician in the Supplementary Health sector of the Neurological Clinic Division of the Hospital das Clínicas of the USP Medical School.

Our brain is made up of neurons, nerve cells, which communicate with each other through electrical synapses, with the release of neurochemical mediators. According to the stimuli received, there may be a rearrangement of these cells. This means that the more we use an area of ​​our brain, the more developed it will become.

As Professor Octávio Pontes Neto, head of the Service of Vascular Neurology and Neurological Emergencies at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto at USP, explains, “what happens with brain stimulation is that, over time, some pathways, some connections, they get stronger, and some areas of brain architecture also end up changing as we use it. We prioritize some activities”.

Neuroplasticity, in addition to providing better development of certain brain areas, increasing the performance of activities related to them, allows neuronal recovery after certain accidents. After injuries to the central nervous system (CNS), axons can develop new branches and establish new synaptic contacts, altering functions and behavior. The CNS tries to recover its lost functions or strengthen those that have weakened.

“Physiotherapy and speech therapy will provide a type of rehabilitation, so that you partially or completely restore these lost functions. This is done through neuroplasticity,” says Spera. For example, if there is some trauma in the region of the brain responsible for language, it is possible to work on language so that adjacent regions can sometimes assume that function.

There are people who already have a predisposition for certain activities because they were born with the most developed part of the brain responsible, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be trained to develop some skill. “We can encourage that. I usually tell my patients that the physical activity of the brain is learning: learning a language, a musical instrument and manual work. All of this will be reinforcing these learning pathways and stimulating plasticity”, says Spera. Once traced, these neuronal pathways are not lost even after years of disuse.

The doctor even cites a curious case. In England, the test to be a taxi driver included memorizing the map of the city in which you were going to operate, as well as knowing the names of the streets. “They did a study with English taxi drivers in London, showing that some parietal regions were thicker. They are areas of the brain responsible for spatial and navigation functions, which is the ability to move in space.”

The Musician’s Brain
During musical training, a large area is stimulated, which causes new circuits to be explored and created, so that a more efficient way to carry out this task is discovered. Through studies of functional magnetic resonance imaging and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), it was possible to verify that there is a significant difference between the structure and connections of the areas of the brain of musicians and non-musicians. “This suggests that studying the effect of music on the brain is a good way to study brain plasticity, because we are able to perceive these alterations in specific areas of the brain”, says Pontes.


Raphael Spera – Photo: LinkedIn
Visually, their gray matter volume is greater in areas related to executive functions, such as attention and perception. Professional musicians still have a greater volume of gray matter in the hippocampus, in addition to more developed white matter in the connection between the motor cortex and the spinal cord. Thus, they perform better in motor activities, memorizing music snippets and even hearing improvement.

Raphael Spera explains that this also happens in other activities. “When you learn a language, a new rule, record new information, all of this is done through neuroplasticity. It is not by chance that the structure of the hippocampus, which is the region of the brain that will fix new information, is a more modifiable cortex. Despite being simpler, more rudimentary, it has this ability to transform.”

For this reason, music therapy is something widely explored as a way of treating certain diseases. Together with other therapies, it is indicated for clinical treatments, rehabilitation and prevention of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, frontotemporal dementia, epilepsy and stroke, and for psychological diseases such as depression, schizophrenia and anxiety. Autism can also be treated through music therapy. “Music can stimulate emotions. It’s a communication between the auditory region and the brain’s circuit of emotions, which is mainly in the amygdala, a region that will release dopamine, which is a hormone that makes you feel good”, says Spera.

Neurofeedback in psychology
In psychology, there is an area of ​​treatment that is based on neuroplasticity and it is called neurofeedback. The approximately 87 billion neurons present in the brain produce, through their electrical signals, different frequencies, or electrophysiological patterns.

The neurofeedback technique consists of training the brain to normalize these patterns, from stimuli in the desired frequency range, in an attempt to enhance the performance of electrophysiological dimensions or to cure symptoms of psychological illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. Another aspect is the use of neurofeedback to enhance normal functions such as cognitive ability or increased artistic abilities and creativity.

An example of this is listening to classical music to study, or using sound frequencies to “regulate” emotions or to allow you to enter states of relaxation, such as the 432 Hz frequency used for meditation. Frequency waves are categorized into delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma. Each is related to a state of the brain: low frequencies, such as delta, are dominant during sleep, coma or anesthesia. Unlike this, the theta frequency is observed in a state of low alertness and drowsiness.

Studies show that the higher the frequency of alpha, the lower the functioning of the brain. This frequency is related to greater relaxation and comfort. The beta frequency, on the other hand, represents a state of greater alertness and is present in moments of stress, strong emotions and tension.

Frequency alpha waves are related to greater concentration, says a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Research found that by suppressing the alpha brain frequency in one hemisphere of their brain, people were able to focus more on things that appeared on the other side of their visual field. That is, it is possible to control attention by manipulating the use of alpha frequency.

Neurofeedback acts to condition the brain to take neuronal paths different from those already traced in agreement with some disease, improving the patient’s clinical condition and well-being. The technique stimulates neuroplasticity.