Tom’s Wordpress Blog

We’ve all seen people do seemingly too many things at the same time: sometimes we do it ourselves. Psychiatrist Richard Restak recently gave a talk about what makes the brain capable of this kind of multiple stuff (The brain is adaptable - to a point)

The brain’s ability to adapt to the stresses of the modern age — and other changes — is based on its plasticity, Restak said. “The brain mostly talks to itself,” he said. “It develops and evolves, not by growing new cells, not by getting bigger, but by setting up circuits. The more things we do and the more things we learn, the more circuits we establish.”

Like most things, how useful this is depends on context. For example there’s a recently-developed therapy practice that harnesses plasticity to help recover limb function after a brain injury:

One of the most promising applications based on the growing evidence of the brain’s plasticity is constraint-induced movement therapy, Restak said. It’s being used to rehabilitate the paralyzed arms of stroke patients. It involves constraining the less-affected arm while intensively training the use of the other arm. “This is very recent,” he said. “It makes so much sense once you understand how it is possible for the brain to reorganize itself.”

But sometimes the ability to adapt can stretch pretty thin. Then the context can get kinda strange.

As “multitasking” becomes not only a way of life but a valued workplace skill, “attention deficit disorder is not so much a disease but a prerequisite for enduring the present life we’re in,” Restak said. “It’s the official brain syndrome of our age.”

But it’s not always a great thing:

Restak said he recently encountered a woman talking on a cell phone while pushing her child in a stroller. The lesson she was teaching the child was that “an unseen person on the other end of a cell phone can exert a greater influence on one’s immediate surroundings than the person who is right there.”

Unless the kid’s brain can adapt to it, I guess.