S182 Introduction to neuroplasticity and its application in neurorehabilitation

Abstract

Neuroplasticity is defined as the property of the brain to adapt to environmental pressures, experiences, and challenges including brain damage. It is a lifelong capacity of the brain to change and rewire itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. Based upon this input, several conclusions were recently appearing on the surface. First, there appears to be tremendous latent plasticity even in the adult brain. Second, the brain should be thought of, not as a hierarchy of organized autonomous modules, each of which delivers its output to the next level, but as a set of complex interacting networks that are in a state of dynamic equilibrium with the brain’s environment. Both principles can be potentially exploited in a clinical context to facilitate recovery of function. Promoting neuroplasticity in an enriched environment will eventually result in dendritic branching, synapses, glial processes, brain weight, and cortical thickness. Currently, it is believed that activity drives reorganization of cerebral networks, which is paralleled by functional improvements in cases of acquired brain injuries that are usually in need of intense rehabilitation programs. Numeral studies have demonstrated reorganization of brain activity pattern in response to intense training of motor and cognitive tasks and imagination of movements. For instance, promising results were shown using feedback techniques, like mirror visual feedback (MVF) improving chronic regional pain syndrome and hemiparesis following stroke. Evidence based therapeutic interventions using neuroplasticity as its base include aerobic exercise, bilateral arm training, constraint induced movement therapy,body weight supported treadmill training, mirror therapy, action observation, motor imagery/mental practice, functional electrical stimulation and music therapy.Promising therapies that may enhance training-induced cognitive and motor learning, such as brain stimulation and neuropharmacological interventions, were also identified, along with arousing questions involving more updated ways to use neuroplasticity in improving quality of life in cases of human disability.