Brain..Plasticity?

[Silas]

Ok, so I don't know much about what I'm about to speculate, so corrections are welcomed.

Basically I get the impression that the brain doesn't work in a, how should I say it, isolated mechanical sort of way. Meaning it's not so simple a matter of pointing at a specific area of the brain with your stick and saying it does this action and nothing else.

I'm guessing this from reading about a study conducted on rats (or mice?) taught to navigate a maze, and then areas of their brain were cut away to see if they could isolate where memory came from. And the results were something akin to them not forgetting how to navigate the maze, suggesting that memory was all over in a sense, or could be relocated.

Therefore if someone casts a quizzical look upon you after declaring an interest in psychology, and labels it pseudo-science by saying they can only estimate or guess where certain behaviours and such emanate from the brain, that doesn't really hold true? (I've had this said to me)
For instance people may not like how the cognitive functions are attributed, (split into four, Ni/Si back left, Ne/Se front right etc) due to it being too generalised perhaps. But if you can't properly isolate a cognitive function in the first place due to the brains plasticity or what not, then wouldn't that be as accurate a description as poss?

I'd trawl over the internet and research this a bit, but then I'll be internet surfing all day.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Neuroplasticity is a relatively new concept, and had a difficult time getting a foot hold with the decades of "brain as a machine" doctrine. If you're interested, here are a couple TED talks that have to do with neuroplasticity:

http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_merzenich_on_the_elastic_brain.html

And a good book on the subject for a bit more depth is "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge.

 

[snafupants]

there seems to be some confusion with your surmises at the end - when you mention the futility of mbti because of neuroplasticity. first thing, neuroplasticity is inexorably linked to neurogenesis, or the ability to create new neurons. for the most part, twentieth century scientists thought that one peaked with 100 billion neurons - which is indeed true, on the average - and then never created any more for the rest of their lives - which is patently false. your assumption is beguiled because it presupposes than any additional neurons will result in an overhaul of cognitive process, when it is really only an enhancement of current cognitive framework.

factors that hinder neurogenesis range from lack of sleep, (which impact a prime culprit) stress or anxiety, anti-depressant use, alcohol use, and depression more generally. to isolate lack of sleep for a moment, in mice lack of sleep was related to glucocorticoid (cortisol, stress hormone) production, which is in turn related to an inhibitory function for neurogenesis on novel hippocampal neurons; sleep restores the process though, so dont fret too much. the key physiological areas which are important to keep inactive are the hpa-axis and, relatedly, the amygdala - which, in a science for kids way, regulate stress and fear, respectively. as for reversing this negative process, exercise and new learning have been shown to create new hippocampal neurons in mice. in summation, it is important to avoid certain brain states (stress) and activities and augment others (proper sleep and exercise) to heighten the occurrence of neurogenesis.

 

[Trebuchet]

Neuroplasticity is also extremely interesting. If you get a chance to listen to Science Friday (available on podcast), Ira Flatow has experts on the subject fairly often.

I think when people say psychology is a pseudoscience, they are referring to clinical therapy. People studying the structures and chemistry of the brain are doing science, but they haven't gotten all that far (compared to, say, physics) and it isn't clear how far they will get.

Part of the problem is the small sample size. If you want to study the combined gas law, you might have 10^20 particles, and there are trillions of stars, thousands of fruit flies with new generations every 2 weeks, but it is hard to measure more than a few hundred people at once, and then only for a few hours, or in rare cases a few years.

I have no idea where cognitive functions might reside or how they might appear chemically or in the physical structure of the brain, and I kind of doubt that they will. It seems like a model, rather than the reality of the brain. Useful, though.

 

[Silas]

Thanks for the links, I'll check them out. Yeh sorry I wasn't very clear about what I meant, I didn't really get it out, but thats probably due to a lack of knowledge in the area anyway.
I've heard of chronic stress being a factor in reducing dendrites, neural pathways and sometimes entire neurons in Adbusters before, they went over how exercise increases BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).

And maybe they were referring to clinical psychology, I can see how the sample size would get them.