Now, recently, it has been found that it can change a lot.

And yet, this is a period of life where the brain is particularly adaptable and malleable.

Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich looks at one of the secrets of the brain's incredible power its ability to actively re wire itself. He's researching ways to harness the brain's plasticity to enhance our skills and recover lost function.

So, the interface with cognitive science, since we need to come to that, and it was, I suppose, the subject of we have to deal in such a short time with brain plasticity. The brain was thought to be more or less fixed.

All the nominal connections, in numbers and quantities, were thought until the last 20 years thought to be more or less fixed when we reached adult age.

Michael Merzenich on re wiring the brain

So how can we take this incredible capacity of plasticity of the brain and get people to experience their world differently?

Now in this early period of plasticity the brain actually changes outside of a learning context.

There's an amazing amount of stuff that's built into the brain.

Unlike the smashed glass of my car, plasticity of the brain means that there was always a possibility, with treatment, to train the brain so that you can regain and raise your level of awareness and consciousness.

Moreover, most plastic products are made from so called petroleum based commodity thermoplastics. Given that a non renewable resource forms the basis of many plastic products most of which will not last long current plastics usage patterns are not sustainable.

The nervous system has plasticity.

The nervous system has plasticity.

But I'm here to tell you that technologies are more malleable than that.

Every one of us has a different set of acquired skills and abilities that all derive out of the plasticity, the adaptability of this really remarkable adaptive machine.

It's completely waterproof and actually plastic. See?

One side note on the collection of brains because of the way that we collect, and because we require consent, we actually have a lot more male brains than female brains.

From these studies we defined two great epochs of the plastic history of the brain.

For example, for all the TEDTalks around food, someone summed this up into Food shaping body, brains and environment, which I think is pretty good.

When the male brain works well, it works extremely well.

This lifelong capacity for plasticity, for brain change, is powerfully expressed.

Your brain doesn't know. Because both are equally likely.

So your sofa, your plastic chair, your kid's toys give their own invisible reality. And this one is very toxic.

So whenever possible, to choose alternatives to single use plastics.

The upper is Nylon 6 that can go back to caprolactam, the bottom, a polyolephine infinitely recyclable thermoplastic.

So, you're saying that in the pamphlet there's a statement that we may come to prefer our digital selves to our real ones our more malleable or manageable digital identities to our real identities and that in fact, much of human life and human experience may move into the digital realm.

We need to cut the spigot of single use and disposable plastics, which are entering the marine environment every day on a global scale.

Exactly the type most likely to make a good companion for feeble, spineless, confused men.

And that's another way of saying the brain has strategies that define the significance of the input to the brain.

The brain is intentionally by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women.

I think in our minds we imagine somebody's going to take the little bottle, say, Oh, little bottle.

But of course, it was the cane is light, the cane is flexible, the cane is durable and the cane is moldable.

And if you appreciate that number, you can easily see there is huge potential for mis wiring of the brain.

And the plastic heads, sometimes you want to project them.

the Weapons and Ammunition Act the Import and Export Act 1962 the Strategic Goods (Import and Export) Decree the Decree on the Issue of Declarations for Strategic Goods, which forms the basis for International Import Certificates and Delivery Verification Certificates the Strategic Goods (Financial Transactions) Decree 1996, which requires a licence for Dutch legal or natural persons financially involved in the trade of strategic goods that are in transit or otherwise outside the EU

Feminism and the Male Brain

They used to use a plastic packaging buffer, but we were able to give them the exact same physical performance with our grown material.

We said, there's got to be a more sustainable way to make plastics.

The Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, 1991.

Plasticity means that there was always hope for our reason hope for our ability to rebuild that function.

And so I think we're ready to tackle one of the most important questions in neuroscience how are the brains of men and women different?

And this is really bad news because plastic is not an inert substance.

I'm going to talk about using these strategies to actually design brain plasticity based approach to drive corrections in the machinery of a child that increases the competence of the child as a language receiver and user and, thereafter, as a reader.

Whenever possible, refuse single use and disposable plastics.

At this precise moment you are, with the speed of a mechanical brain, weighing and computing an infinite number of possibilities.