Nervous System Plasticity: Rewiring the Brain

Overview of Nervous System Change

• The nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord, and connections to organs.
• The nervous system dictates behavior, emotions, and perceptions.
• Humans can change their nervous systems through deliberate actions, especially those involving movement and balance.
• Motor commands and balance provide pathways for influencing the nervous system, even for changes unrelated to movement.

Representational Plasticity and Error Correction

• Representational plasticity refers to the internal mapping of the external world.
• Creating mismatches or errors during performance triggers neuroplasticity.
• Errors signal the brain that something is wrong, prompting the release of neurochemicals that drive change.

Neurochemicals and Brain Change

• Brain change requires specific neurochemicals: acetylcholine, epinephrine, and dopamine.
• These chemicals mark neural circuits for change, with actual changes occurring during sleep.
• Focus helps release these chemicals, but making errors is critical for triggering dopamine release.

Focus on Motor and Vestibular Programs

• Motor and vestibular programs can set the stage for broader brain changes beyond just motor skills and balance.
• Focus on these programs can create conditions in the brain that facilitate learning in other areas.

Plasticity in Development and Adulthood

• The brain is highly plastic from birth to about age 25.
• Plasticity tapers off after age 25, requiring different methods to engage it.
• Auditory, visual, and motor maps are aligned, allowing fluid movement through space.
• These maps can shift through neuroplasticity, as shown in experiments with prism glasses.

Prism Glasses Experiments

• Wearing prism glasses shifts the visual field, causing initial errors in reaching for objects.
• Young people quickly adjust their motor behavior to reach correctly despite the visual shift.
• This indicates the ability to shift aligned maps within the nervous system.
• Older individuals often struggle to make this shift, highlighting differences in adult plasticity.

Errors as Signals for Plasticity

• Making errors signals the nervous system to initiate changes, crucial for neuroplasticity and learning.
• Frustration from errors can be leveraged to drive deeper engagement and plasticity.
• Errors lead to the release of epinephrine (alertness) and acetylcholine (focus), helping to correct performance.
• Dopamine is released when performance starts to approximate the correct behavior, allowing plastic changes to occur rapidly.

Incremental Learning and High-Stakes Contingency

• Incremental learning is essential for adults due to the need for smaller error margins; smaller bouts of learning are the key.
• Massive plasticity in adults can occur under high-stakes conditions, like needing to find food.
• High contingency emphasizes that the importance of a task or goal accelerates and magnifies plasticity.
• These conditions point to the release of chemicals from internal stores within the brain.

Ultradian Rhythms and Learning

• Ultradian rhythms involve 90-minute cycles that affect focus and learning.
• Initial minutes of learning may involve mind drift, but focus should kick in.
• An hour of focused learning can be followed by a period of frustration and errors, which is crucial for triggering chemical cues for plasticity.
• Rest after intense learning allows for consolidation and improved performance later.

Attaching Dopamine to Error-Making

• Attaching dopamine to the process of making errors combines modes of plasticity, accelerating the rate of learning.
• This means telling oneself that failures are beneficial enhances the rate of plasticity
• Dopamine can be released subjectively, based on what we believe is good for us.
• Making errors and associating them with positive learning goals can significantly enhance learning outcomes.

Frequency and Timing

• It is important to find ideal times throughout the day to engage in error-making and learning.
• The episode stresses the importance of focus when committing errors.

Optimal Learning Time

• The best time to learn varies for each individual, depending on sleep patterns and natural biological rhythms.
• Identify the times of day when your mental acuity is highest for optimal learning.
• Learning should involve making errors and pushing through them for 7-30 minutes.
• Seeking frustration during learning can create an optimal neurochemical environment for learning.
• This state enhances learning for other subjects for about an hour afterward.

Neuroplasticity Mechanisms

• Balance via the vestibular system and limbic friction (autonomic arousal) are key for opening up neuroplasticity.

Limbic Friction Explained

• Limbic friction describes when the autonomic nervous system isn't where one wants it.
• It captures information in neurobiology and psychology textbooks and carries implications for neuroplasticity.
• It is a more nuanced term than "stress," which often evokes negative connotations like rapid heartbeat and sweating.
• Limbic friction occurs both when trying to calm down from being too alert and when trying to become more alert from fatigue.
• Accessing neuroplasticity requires focus and subjective reward attachment, often hindered by overall state.

Managing Alertness for Learning

• If too anxious, calming techniques involve the double inhale-exhale to offload carbon dioxide.
• This involves inhaling twice through the nose and exhaling once through the mouth.
• Panoramic vision (dilating field of gaze) can also reduce alertness.
• If too tired, prioritize a good night's sleep or Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) protocols.
• Super oxygenation breathing (inhaling more than exhaling) can also increase alertness.
• You can trick your nervous system into waking up by bringing more oxygen in by making your inhales deeper and longer

Assessing Limbic Friction

• Before learning, assess your limbic friction level: Are you too alert or too calm?
• Adjust arousal levels to reach the optimal state for learning.

Vestibular System and Balance

• The vestibular system (hardwired balance system) plays a key role in heightened or accelerated plasticity.
• The brain relies on propri accepted feedback from three planes of movement to understand where the body is.
• The three planes are pitch (nodding), yaw (shaking head no), and roll (side-to-side).

Ears and Balance

• The ears serve two main purposes, one is to hear right to perceive sound waves or take in sound waves for perception soall hearing.
• Sitting in our ears are these semicircular canals where little Stones roll back and forth and it sends signlas to the rest of our brain.

Cerebellum's Role

• Errors in vestibular motor sensory experience cause the cerebellum (mini brain) to signal deeper brain centers.
• These signals trigger the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine.
• This process is designed to recalibrate motor movements relative to gravity, essential for survival.
• These circuits tap into chemical pathways that act as gateways to plasticity.

Key Components for Plasticity

• Ensure appropriate autonomic arousal before learning (clear, calm, focused, or slightly heightened).
• Intentionally make errors during the learning process.
• Engage the vestibular motor sensory relationship.
• Establish a high contingency by setting an important reason for learning.

Movement and Plasticity

• Children exhibit more diverse movements than adults, potentially contributing to greater plasticity.
• Reduced plasticity in older individuals may be linked to more linear and regular movement patterns.
• The vestibular system amplifies plasticity by tapping into an inborn mechanism.
• The cerebellum has outputs to brain nuclei associated with dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine.

Practical Considerations

• Increased plasticity (enhanced learning) occurs if you really need to learn it.
• While mechanisms can enhance learning, there are limits to how quickly information can be absorbed.

Podcast Goals

• The podcast aims to provide insights into the mechanisms and biology underlying learning.
• It seeks to tailor foundational mechanisms to individual learning needs.
• The archival ensures accessible long term.