biology

The Brain that Changes Itself

The Brain that Changes Itself is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Brain that Changes Itself rather than just read about it. In short: The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science is a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge. Content The book is a collection of stories of doctors and patients showing that the human brain is capable of undergoing change, including stories of recovering use of paralyzed body parts, deaf people learning to hear, and others getting relief…

Key takeaways

The Brain that Changes Itself belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Brain that Changes Itself to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Brain that Changes Itself from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science is a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge.

Content The book is a collection of stories of doctors and patients showing that the human brain is capable of undergoing change, including stories of recovering use of paralyzed body parts, deaf people learning to hear, and others getting relief from pain using exercises to retrain neural pathways. Doidge also covers scientists who first identified neuroplasticity, the subjects of persistent pain, sexual attraction and love, how culture impacts the changing brain, the developing pediatric brain and the preservation of the geriatric brain. The book contains 11 chapters:

A Woman Perpetually Falling, Rescued by the Man Who Discovered the Plasticity of Our Senses Building Herself, a Better Brain A Woman Labeled "Retarded" Discovers How to Heal Herself Redesigning the Brain, A Scientist Changes Brains to Sharpen Perception and Memory, Increase Speed of Thought, and Heal Learning Problems Acquiring Tastes and Loves What Neuroplasticity Teaches Us About Sexual Attraction and Love Midnight Resurrections, Stroke Victims Learn to Move and Speak Again Brain Lock Unlocked, Using Plasticity to Stop Worries, Obsessions, Compulsions, and Bad Habits Pain The Dark Side of Plasticity Imagination, How Thinking Makes It So Turning Our Ghosts into Ancestors , Psychoanalysis as a Neuroplastic Therapy Rejuvenation, The Discovery of the Neuronal Stem Cell and Lessons for Preserving Our Brains More than the Sum of Her Parts, A Woman Shows Us How Radically Plastic the Brain Can Be

Reception The New York Times gave a mostly positive review of the book.

Dr. Doidge, a Canadian psychiatrist and award-winning science writer, recounts the accomplishments of the "neuroplasticians," as he calls the neuroscientists involved in these new studies, with breathless reverence. Their work is indeed mind-bending, miracle-making, reality-busting stuff, with implications, as Dr. Doidge notes, not only for individual patients with neurologic disease but for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history. In contrast The International Journal of Psychoanalysis published a negative book review essay critical of Doidge's writings. The review claims that neuroscience is irrelevant to the study of psychoanalysis. Kirkus Reviews stated the book is "somewhat scattershot, but Doidge's personal stories, enthusiasm for his subject and admiration for its researchers keep the reader engaged." In a review of the book for the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology, Jane Hall wrote in 2011 "Contrary to the original belief that after childhood the brain begins a long process of decline, [Doidge] shows us that our brains have the remarkable power to grow, change, overcome disabilities, learn, recover, and alter the very culture that has the potential to deeply affect human nature."

The book is rich in both journalism and science. Not only does the author have professional credentials deriving from his training as a psychiatrist and analyst, but he also has extensive experience in writing, including a three-year stint writing the column 'On Human Nature' for the Canadian newspaper The National Post. [...] More than anything else, it is Doidge's standing as a professional observer of human behavior that ultimately captivates the reader.

See also Barbara Arrowsmith Young, the subject of Chapter 2 of the book. Brain training

Notes

References

Further reading Adams, Tim (February 8, 2015). "Interview : Norman Doidge: the man teaching us to change our minds". The Guardian. Paris, Joel. "Is psychoanalysis still relevant to psychiatry?." The Canadian journal of psychiatry 62.5 (2017): 308-312. Carmeli, Zvi, and Rachel Blass. "The case against neuroplastic analysis: A further illustration of the irrelevance of neuroscience to psychoanalysis through a critique of Doidge's The Brain that Changes Itself." (2013): 391-410.

External links The Official Website The book at Open Library

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Brain that Changes Itself

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Brain that Changes Itself claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Brain that Changes Itself before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Brain that Changes Itself ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Brain that Changes Itself

In research: The Brain that Changes Itself appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Brain that Changes Itself in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Brain that Changes Itself is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2007 non-fiction books, Neuroplasticity, Neuroscience books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Brain that Changes Itself outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “The Brain that Changes Itself” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study The Brain that Changes Itself in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Brain that Changes Itself means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Brain that Changes Itself out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Brain that Changes Itself in simple terms?

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science is a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge. Content The book is a collection of stories of doctors and patients showing that the human brain is capable of undergoing chan…

Why does The Brain that Changes Itself matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Brain that Changes Itself?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Brain that Changes Itself.