Jose Ma. Alfonso L.

Viñegas Introduction to Psychology

PSY11

Insight
After I watched the video entitled “After watching this, your brain will not be the same” by Dr. Lara
Boyd in a talk at the TEDx Vancouver where she talks about how we learn and how some people
can learn more easily than others, I realized that my knowledge about the brain appeared to be
an “unfinished puzzle that has missing pieces”. And I also realized that our brain is changing at a
remarkable pace under circumstances such as learning a new fact or skill, which we call this
phenomenon “neuroplasticity”.
She said that brain research is one of the prominent frontiers in understanding the human
physiology and also in the consideration of what makes us who we are. She also mentioned the
misconceptions about the brain such as using some parts of the brain at any time and it is silent
when you do nothing and only negative changes happen after puberty, which it is found out to be
false. First, it is because that even at rest and thinking of nothing, the brain is still highly active.
Second, some studies revealed remarkable amounts of rearrangement in the adult brain which it
helps to support recover after damaging your brain. And lastly, a research shows that all of our
behaviors change our brain, which is not limited to age and it happens all the time.
Neuroplasticity is the key to these changes in your brain, which it can change in three basic ways
in supporting learning abilities. The first way is through the transference of chemical signals
between neurons that will trigger a series of actions and reactions. Your brain can increase the
amount/concentration of the chemical signaling that is taking place between neurons which it
supports short term memory due to this change happens rapidly. The second way is altering the
brain’s structure. It can change the connections between the neurons during learning which it is
actually change the physical structure of the brain but it will take a bit more time. These changes
are related to long term memory. And the third is by altering the brain’s function. By using a brain
region, it becomes more and more stimulated and easy to use again. And as the brain has these
regions that increase their excitability, it shifts how and when they are activated. These three
changes can occur in isolation from one or another but most of the time, they both happened at
the same time. The primary driver of change in the brain is our behavior and yet the problem is
that the dose of practice required to learn motor skills is quite large and how to deliver these
effectively is a very difficult and expensive problem. Our brain is tremendously “plastic”, because
the neuroplasticity are highly varied from person to person and that is why we had difficulty
recovering from stroke. That is why we are still striving to learn new things despite of the factors
that make it difficult.
Today I learned that the uniqueness of our brains will affect us both as a learner and as a teacher,
neuroplasticity can work in two different ways, it can be positive or negative. Whatever we do and
we don’t do can affect our brain either for the better or for worse. And understanding the
differences of our brain allows us to develop new and more effective interventions.

“Learning is about doing the work that your brain requires”

- Dr. Lara Boyd