Progress-focused

Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain to keep developing throughout life. Over the last decade or so more information has become available about how great this capability of the brain is. In this post I write about how important neuroplasticity's role can be in healing diseases and in this post I discuss some skeptical views on neuroplasticity. Since I started reading about neuroplasticity, about 10 years ago, I began to wonder how far the possibilities of brain training could go. One of the questions which interested me in particular was the question of to which degree age-related problems can be prevented or reversed. A topic about which I was specifically curious is presbyopia, the condition in which aging people are progressively less able to focus. This condition usually starts around age 40 and, from what I read, from age 50 nearly everybody is so affected by it that reading glasses are necessary in order to read.

Neuroplasticity exist in the older brain, too. But it works differently than in young brains.  It was long thought that brains of young people are very flexible and plastic while those of older people largely lack this plasticity. This thinking has changed a lot over the last thirty years,  Much more is known about the capability of brains to keep changing, even at an advanced age. Some amazing examples of neuroplasticity can be seen here and here . If it is indeed true that brains of older people remain plastic, that would be good news. It would mean that we can keep on making progress throughout our lives. And there are many indications that this is indeed the case.