Action Changes the Brain, and the Brain Does Not Define Action: a Lesson from Neuroscience on Certain Biases in the Clinical Context

Abstract

Although neuroscientific findings have significantly increased knowledge in the clinical field, the field literature has highlighted some limitations that the use of these findings involves. In particular, we found biases that lead clinical practitioners to reify or unduly consider neuroscientific data because of psychological or psychiatric aspects. This literature review aimed to highlight neuroscientific studies that specified significant brain changes that may occur in humans. Starting with Prisma procedures, we conducted a review of the literature using the following databases: Scopus, Medline, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The results were grouped according to data underlining the considerable neuronal plasticity and synaptogenesis that occur in humans. In particular, the data found related to the following categories: learning and changes in the somatosensory and motor cortices; cross-modal plasticity in individuals who have lost one sensory modality; further cases of training-dependent plasticity; neuromuscular junction plasticity; synaptogenesis, synaptic modulation, and long-term potentiation; receptor adaptation involving adaptive-cellular tolerance or pharmacodynamics and experience; placebo, cognition-dependent physiological activity and endogenous pharmacotherapy; and significance-dependent physiological modulation and adaptive coping. As a result, the clinical need to counteract the idea of a passive subject who is controlled by his/her brain to ensure more accurate care of his/her health was identified. Clinical practitioners can foster this process by reducing biases and by adopting an approach based on the circularity of interdisciplinary interactions rather than on reductionism and oversimplification.