Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt. Unlike computers, which are built to certain specifications and receive software updates periodically, our brains can actually receive hardware updates in addition to software updates. Different pathways form and fall dormant, are created and are discarded, according to our experiences.
When we learn something new, we create new connections between our neurons. We rewire our brains to adapt to new circumstances. This happens on a daily basis, but it’s also something that we can encourage and stimulate.
9 Quotes on Neuroplasticity
Check out these 9 interesting, engaging, and sometimes entertaining quotes about neuroplasticity.
Andrew Weil:
“Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas.”
Elizabeth Thornton:
“Because of the power of neuroplasticity, you can, in fact, reframe your world and rewire your brain so that you are more objective. You have the power to see things as they are so that you can respond thoughtfully, deliberately, and effectively to everything you experience.”
Santiago Ramón y Cajal:
“Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.”
Craig Krishna:
“Meditation invokes that which is known in neuroscience as neuroplasticity; which is the loosening of the old nerve cells or hardwiring in the brain, to make space for the new to emerge.”
Norman Doidge:
“Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.”
Donald O. Hebb:
“Neurons that fire together wire together.”
Douglas Rushkoff:
“Brains are tricky and adaptable organs. For all the ‘neuroplasticity’ allowing our brains to reconfigure themselves to the biases of our computers, we are just as neuroplastic in our ability to eventually recover and adapt.”
Michael S. Gazzaniga:
“Our brains renew themselves throughout life to an extent previously thought not possible.”
Susannah Cahalan:
“Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless).”
