Brain Plasticity in Action, (on a trampoline)!

This young man is just 19 months old.   When he was 6 weeks of age he suffered a massive stroke which destroyed the left side of his brain.  His doctors told his mum that as a consequence he would never be able to use his right side limbs, which meant he would never crawl, never walk, and because language functions are situated in the left hemisphere, he would never understand or produce spoken language.  His mum refused to accept this and after many months of despair, she found Snowdrop via an internet search.  We instituted a programme of neuro-developmental stimulation, which he has been following for just 1 year.  The results have been astonishing and he did crawl, he does walk, (and run) and he most certainly does talk!  Here we see him coordinating both legs in order to enjoy the trampoline.  This young man is proof positive that not only can we stimulate brain plasticity, we can successfully direct it down a developmental pathway and thus restore the functions of children who have suffered brain injury.

 is trampolining using both legs in coordinated style! Go Max!

The Principles of the Snowdrop Programme

(1) Brain injury is in the brain and if we are to help our children overcome their problems we must direct our efforts towards influencing brain plasticity.

(2). The brain responds to 3 major influences, -genetic instruction, - its internal operating environment, - the demands placed on it by the environment. These three factors drive the development of the child forward. We cannot influence genetic instruction, but we can influence the other two factors.

(3). How do we influence the demands of the environment and therefore also influence brain plasticity? - We do so through repetition of stimulus. A brain injury acts as a 'roadblock' preventing stimuli from the environment from being processed properly in the brain and therefore the child fails to develop. The Snowdrop programme assesses where that developmental roadblock lies in each area of development and provides an appropriate developmental activity which is repeated over weeks and months and which acts as an increased environmental stimulus, helping to overcome the roadblock and allowing the correct stimulation to reach the brain.

(4). The brain prefers to take in information in short, sharp bursts, which is why most activities within the programme are carried out for between 1 and 3 minutes,

(5). The brain needs plenty of 'downtime' in order to process and organise information, for this reason the programme is not as 'intensive' as might be imagined.

(6). Children learn and develop in social situations with the help of family and friends. All new abilities begin as abilities which are just beyond the reach of the child and he / she can only perform those abilities with help from family / friends. The programme activities are therefore carried out with the child by family and friends.

(7). Those friends and family who are helping the child learn and develop in social situations are providing assistance which Bruner termed as 'scaffolding' to enable the child to complete developmental tasks which are just outside of his ability to complete them alone. As the child becomes increasingly competent at the ability through repetition of stimulus, the scaffolding is gradually withdrawn until the ability is 'internalised' and the child has attained that developmental ability. This is what Vygotsky termed 'passage through the zone of proximal development.' In this way we marry academically sound Vygotskian psychology with current evidence on stimulating neuroplasticity.

The link between music and language development.

This is the reason why exposure to music is a primary factor within the Snowdrop programme for brain injured children.  With thanks to 'Medical News Today.'

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Contrary to the prevailing theories that music and language are cognitively separate or that music is a byproduct of language, theorists at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) advocate that music underlies the ability to acquire language. 

"Spoken language is a special type of music," said Anthony Brandt, co-author of a theory paper published online this month in the journal Frontiers in Cognitive Auditory Neuroscience. "Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence, and music is often treated as being dependent on or derived from language. But from a developmental perspective, we argue that music comes first and language arises from music." 

Brandt, associate professor of composition and theory at the Shepherd School, co-authored the paper with Shepherd School graduate student Molly Gebrian and L. Robert Slevc, UMCP assistant professor of psychology and director of the Language and Music Cognition Lab. 

"Infants listen first to sounds of language and only later to its meaning," Brandt said. He noted that newborns' extensive abilities in different aspects of speech perception depend on the discrimination of the sounds of language - "the most musical aspects of speech." 

The paper cites various studies that show what the newborn brain is capable of, such as the ability to distinguish the phonemes, or basic distinctive units of speech sound, and such attributes as pitch, rhythm and timbre. 

The authors define music as "creative play with sound." They said the term "music" implies an attention to the acoustic features of sound irrespective of any referential function. As adults, people focus primarily on the meaning of speech. But babies begin by hearing language as "an intentional and often repetitive vocal performance," Brandt said. "They listen to it not only for its emotional content but also for its rhythmic and phonemic patterns and consistencies. The meaning of words comes later." 

Brandt and his co-authors challenge the prevailing view that music cognition matures more slowly than language cognition and is more difficult. "We show that music and language develop along similar time lines," he said. 

Infants initially don't distinguish well between their native language and all the languages of the world, Brandt said. Throughout the first year of life, they gradually hone in on their native language. Similarly, infants initially don't distinguish well between their native musical traditions and those of other cultures; they start to hone in on their own musical culture at the same time that they hone in on their native language, he said. 

The paper explores many connections between listening to speech and music. For example, recognizing the sound of different consonants requires rapid processing in the temporal lobe of the brain. Similarly, recognizing the timbre of different instruments requires temporal processing at the same speed - a feature of musical hearing that has often been overlooked, Brandt said. 

"You can't distinguish between a piano and a trumpet if you can't process what you're hearing at the same speed that you listen for the difference between 'ba' and 'da,'" he said. "In this and many other ways, listening to music and speech overlap." The authors argue that from a musical perspective, speech is a concert of phonemes and syllables. 

"While music and language may be cognitively and neurally distinct in adults, we suggest that language is simply a subset of music from a child's view," Brandt said. "We conclude that music merits a central place in our understanding of human development." 

Brandt said more research on this topic might lead to a better understanding of why music therapy is helpful for people with reading and speech disorders. People with dyslexia often have problems with the performance of musical rhythm. "A lot of people with language deficits also have musical deficits," Brandt said. 

More research could also shed light on rehabilitation for people who have suffered a stroke. "Music helps them reacquire language, because that may be how they acquired language in the first place," Brandt said. 

Green tea and it's effects upon neurogenesis.

With thanks to 'Medical News Today. This looks interesting!   The chemical within green tea, (EGCG), seems to affect neurogenesis, (The production of new brain cells during life, - which only occurs in the hippocampus, - the part of the brain responsible for learning and part of memory formation). However, the evidence suggests that EGCG can turn these new cells to various uses in the brain when the researchers discovered that



"ECGC helps to promote the making of neural progenitor cells, which are similar to stem cells which can turn into many different kinds of cells."

This has immediate practical implications for the treatment of brain injured children and will be incorporated into the Snowdrop programme with immediate effect. (We shall be recommending caffeine free green tea of course).

Green Tea Improves Memory and Spatial Awareness.

The Reticular Formation and Sensory Processing.

We are constantly taking in information from the environment through our senses. It is something we cannot help but do and we use this sensory information to each construct our version of reality. But what is reality?

None of us really have any idea what reality is actually like: all we have is a limited sensory system, which interprets visual, auditory and tactile information and relays it to our conscious awareness. But people can only iterpret a small part of reality, being unable to detect, for example, radiation or broad colors on the light spectrum.

This is one reason why there is folly in totally accepting the world your senses provide you with. But there is another reason, one that you have more direct control over: the sensitisation of your reticular system and what it means for how you experience life on a daily basis.

The general rule of your reticular system is that whatever dominates your thoughts - both conscious and unconscious - will also dominate your attention, whether you like it or not. Ever had a toothache and then noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of adverts on TV about toothpaste and dentists? This is your reticular system at work. When a mother has a baby, she becomes acutely aware, even in sleep, of every noise her baby makes. - This is her reticular system at work, - tuning attention to what is dominating her thought processes.

Now let's consider what happens when the functioning of the reticular system is not as it should be. Many children suffer from sensory oversensitivity, whether it be visual, auditory or tactile; - or all three! This might present itself as a general oversensitivity in the affected modality, or a more specific oversensitivity, such as being oversensitive to specific sights, sounds and / or sensations. This is again the work of the reticular system, (inconjunction with the thalamus) Because of a dysfunction within the brain, whether caused by genetics or brain injury, the reticular system of the child becomes sensitised to particular stimulus, whether visual or auditory, etc and works in conjunction with the thalamus to excite the cortex so that the stimulus is processed. However, because of the dysfunctional reticular system, the cortex becomes over-excited and the child, not understanding why the stimulus is triggering this reaction in his system, reacts wildly. Here we have the basis for sensory oversensitivity in many types of developmental disability, including cerebral palsy, autism and Asperger's syndrome. or any other type of brain injury.

Fortunately, these neurological structures can be re-tuned, as they constantly are in uninjured human being, as our awareness and attention are constantly redirected to salient features of our environment. Snowdrop has developed techniques to help children who suffer from this type of difficulty to re-tune the dysfunctional reticular formation, thus allowing the opportunity for normal developmental processes to resume.

If you would like more information about Snowdrop's treatment programmes for brain injury, visit http://www.snowdrop.cc

Study Shows the Deaf Brain Processes Touch Differently

This study again highlights the brains' adaptability. It demonstrates not only the 'rewiring' phenomenon we see in our children as a result of their participation in the Snowdrop programme, but the fact that areas of the brain previously thought to be specialised for specific functions can adapt and take on other functions.

http://neurosciencenews.com/study-shows-the-deaf-brain-processes-touch-differently/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+neuroscience-rss-feeds-neuroscience-news+%28Neuroscience+News+Updates%29

The Brains' of Children with Autism are Wired Differently.

Research into how the brain is connected in a different way in children with autism.  What this study doesn't tell you is that 'wiring patterns' in the brain can be changed.  The brain responds mainly to two things, - genetic instruction, (faulty genetic instruction can cause a faulty wiring pattern) and the stimuli it receives from the environment.  The environment is by far the most powerful force and the stimulation from it can be manipulated so as to encourage the brain to change.  This is what the Snowdrop programme is all about.
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A research team led by Elizabeth Aylward, a University of Washington professor of radiology, report that brains of adults with autism are “wired” differently from people without the disorder. The researchers, who are affiliated with the University of Washington’s Autism Center, also found that this abnormal connection pattern may be the cause of the social impairments characteristic of autism in children.

The research team used functional magnetic resonance imaging in the study, which also revealed that the subjects with the most severe social impairment showed the most abnormal pattern of activity of connectivity in the brain regions that process faces. One of the earliest characteristics to emerge in autistic children is a deficit in face processing, and this study is the first to examine how the brain processes information about faces.

Lead author Natalia Kleinhans states that "This study shows that these brain regions are failing to work together efficiently" and that the “work seems to indicate that the brain pathways of people with autism are not completely disconnected, but they are not as strong as in people without autism."

The study’s participants were 19 high-functioning autistic adults from ages 18 to 44 with IQs of at least 85 and 21 age- and intelligence-matched typically developed adults. Within the autism spectrum disorder group were 8 individuals diagnosed with autism, 9 diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and 2 with an otherwise non-specified pervasive developmental disorder. Levels of social impairment were drawn from clinical observations and diagnoses.

Participants were shown 4 series of 12 pictures of faces and a similar series of pictures of houses, all while having their brains scanned. The pictures were viewed for 3 seconds, and occasionally they were repeated. The participants were instructed to press a button when a picture was repeated.

Because this was a basic task, the two groups’ performances revealed no difference in performance, but, according to co-author Todd Richards, “Differences might have shown up if they had been asked to do something more complicated."

While there was no difference in performance, the two groups exhibited different patterns of brain activity. The typically developing adults showed significantly more connectivity between the area of the brain involved in face identification and two other areas of the brain than did the autism group.

Those autistic participants with the largest social impairment demonstrated the lowest level of connectivity between the areas of the brain, leading the authors to conclude that "This study shows that the brains of people with autism are not working as cohesively as those of people without autism when they are looking at faces and processing information about them."

Does this research mean that children with autism need to be 'stuck' with this connectivity problem? This is not what I am finding. We know that the brain has qualities of plasticity, - that it is capable of re-organising it's structure and functioning through environmental stimulation. We know that this plasticity is achieved through 'sprouting' - that is the forming of new synaptic connections through dendritic growth in response to this environmental stimulation. As I said at the beginning of this post, this means that the faulty wiring pattern which the brains of children with autism adopts can be changed. The question is, how do we do this? At Snowdrop, I do this by providing the child with an enriched developmental environment which provides stimulation appropriate to the child's sensory and cognitive needs. In the particular instance of poor face recognition processing, we can utilise specialised techniques to enhance the abilities of children to process information concerning faces. Very often this leads to greater eye - contact and better facial regard and the development of mutual attention. As these abilities underpin both language and social development, we can also see improvements in these areas.