Review:
Dr. Michael Merzenich’s 2013
book Soft-Wired is based on over 20
years of research he and other brain scientists have performed that demonstrate
that “the adult human brain is powerfully self-adjusting. It’s soft-wired, not
hard-wired” (Soft-Wired, Michael Merzenich, Parnassus Publishing, LLC, 2013, p.
28). His remedial work on brain redevelopment
was first done with children who had severe deafness or reading
deficiencies. Later research extended to
adults with various physical and behavioral limitations. As he watched clients regain their memory and
ability to function normally (even after traumatic accidents), he then turned
his research attention to developing brain-expanding programs that are applicable
at any age. He discovered that people
can learn how to maximize their brain’s potential throughout life due to the
brain’s plasticity. Merzenich describes the normal development of the brain
from infancy through old age and cites how the brain is affected by people’s
circumstances and input. “In the older
child and adult, in most brain regions, the plasticity ‘switch’ is mostly
turned “OFF”…Plasticity is only flipped to “ON” – permanent changes in the
brain’s machinery are only permitted – under certain circumstances:
- When you pay careful attention or focus on a task or goal
- When you (your brain) are (is) rewarded or punished – or expects rewards or punishment
- When your brain positively evaluates your performance in a goal-directed behavior
- When your brain is surprised by – or potentially threatened by – something new or unexpected…
Changes in the brain
resulting from learning any new skill are massive….Gaining greater learning
power is a core aspect of growing and sustaining your own brain health.” (pp.47,48,49,51). Merzenich’s emphasis empowers people to take
responsibility for their own brain health.
Unlike previous books on
brain plasticity, as much as one-fourth of Merzenich’s book targets older
people (age 60 and up), pleading with them to change their lifestyle so they
can keep their brain active and growing and forestall or even reverse the
deterioration of the brain that usually accompanies old age. His mother was afflicted with Alzheimer’s and
he believes through active brain rejuvenation people can be kept from this
disease. He describes activities that
cause the brain to thrive and gives convincing proof of the efficacy of those
activities. Brain health and growth is
applicable for all ages. Therefore, this is an important book for all
generations. Mary Lou
Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 1/6/14
Excerpts:
One’s brain switch can be in an “OFF” or “ON” position
“If I’m in a learning mode –
alert, concentrated and focused – the brain’s plasticity switches are turned
“ON” and ready to facilitate change. If I’m disengaged, inattentive,
distracted, sleeping, doing something without thinking about it or performing
an action that requires no real effort to succeed on my part, my switches are
mostly turned “OFF”…The harder we try, the more we are motivated, the more
alert we are, and the better (or worse) the outcome, the bigger the brain
change” (p. 53). “What
actually changes in the brain are the strengths of the connections of neurons
that are engaged together, moment by moment, in time…Learning-driven changes in
connections increase cell-to-cell cooperation, which is crucial for increasing
reliability…Initial changes are just temporary. When the brain senses a success
or reward (your pleasure or joy), the brain plasticity switch “ON” converts the
temporary plastic change into a permanent, enduring, physical change.” (pp. 54-56). Then
rehearsing and remembering those activities and goals reinforces the
change. “As you improve in any ability
at one performance level, the brain processes involved with that ability grow
in their precision and reliability. As
the actions of neurons in the brain become more coordinated, the machinery of
the brain detects that growing teamwork and produces chemicals that enable performance
achievement at the next highest level” (p.
62).
“At your peak, your brain
operates with very high accuracy. It is really fast in interpreting what’s
going on and in responding to it. It is capable of operating at high speed not
just because its wiring is well-insulated and you have high-speed transmission
lines but because it also operates with high levels of coordination – which equates
with high accuracy and reliability at the brain level…You can immediately
recall and reconstruct most of what has just happened. You are capable of
synthesis, invention and discovery. You have great powers of abstraction. When
we move beyond this peak, although we are still likely to be growing in
understanding and wisdom, we are also slowly moving backwards in terms of our
accuracy, speed, action control, memory and manipulation of information in
thought.” (p. 64).
“In many older people, the
lack of appreciation of the extent to which basic faculties may be fading is
rather astonishing…The older people are, the greater their errors in
self-calibration…Just about every aspect of our brain’s operations - its
recording, interpreting, identifying, deciding and reaction – slows down. Just
about every aspect of a brain’s accuracy – precise responding, agility, fluency
and reliability- slowly deteriorates” (p.
67).
But this cognitive ability decline in aging can be stopped and even
reversed through brain training.
Memories
Memories are seated in our brain through emotional connection. “We vividly
remember great disasters and triumphs in our lives because they occur under
highly charged emotional circumstances.
The neurotransmitters that accompany these strong positive and negative
emotions are the self-same modulators of the brain’s plasticity. When they’re
switched “ON,” plasticity is powerful and we almost never forget…The clarity of
your memories is also enhanced by repetition and its consequence familiarity.
The more you hear about or are exposed to something and the more things that
you hear or see that it is related to, the more likely you are to remember it.
Your general state of alertness and attention are also very important contributions
to how well you remember something… Finally, the associational powers of the
things that go with a memory increase the reliability of its recording. Associate
what you’re trying to remember with other things that you are not likely to
forget, like numbers, or friends or relatives or any other such hard-to-forget
hook” (p. 91).
The body and the brain
“Physical fitness is a major
contributor to brain fitness. Its
aerobic values have a direct, positive physiological impact on the brain…Your
brain is begging you to engage it with a broad array of physically responding
and movement-control exercise, and in the mental rehearsal that supports its
refined control” (p. 173). “Today, however, our cultural evolution has done a
wonderful job of impoverishing the maintenance of our movement control and the
neurology that supports it, eliminating most of the challenges of our natural
physical environments…We move around in a world of artificially smooth, hard
surfaces, usually while wearing hard-soled shoes. We hardly ever take a step
that requires any thought or adjustment in balance, that perturbs our vision in
any unpredictable way, or that requires any very sophisticated control of
whole-body-coordinated movement… [By contrast, walking on cobblestone streets is
a hidden source of effective brain exercise (p.
179)].
We’ve done our best to remove
anything that might actually surprise us. [But] surprise is very important for
our brains…Unfortunately, in many of its forms, the modern gym does not do a
good job of helping us exercise and re-grow our brain’s control of our
actions in the world. Most gyms and rehabilitation centers are still substantially
brain-less. They focus on flexibility, strength and relatively slow adjustments
in balance” (p. 176). [But] when people do the same exercises, while
wearing their earphones, they do not stimulate their brains for growth as their
bodies work out. The surprise factor is
gone, the senses are not engaged and incorporated into the action.
Those with chronic pain deal
with other issues. “Because the brain is plastic, when pain grows, it can
encode stronger and stronger pain sensations over time, despite the physical
injury appearing to be healed…When you expect pain, it hurts; when no pain is
expected it doesn’t hurt. People with chronic pain often learn, all too well,
to expect it to hurt…Aches and pains are aggravated by how much people dwell on
them, by how often they are sure that they should hurt or by how much their
suffering might negatively impact the quality of their lives (pp.177-178).
Ways to minimize the
magnification of suffering: “Seek as
many reasons as possible NOT to sit down passively…Have a rich variety in your
movements…Remember that if circumstances were just right – for example, if you
had just won a big jackpot in a gambling casino – you know that your pain might
be forgotten, at least for that moment. Try to achieve that moment of
forgetting in your mind…If brain plasticity is deployed in earnest, it may be
possible to be just a little bit more in control tomorrow than it was today. If
a tiny average gain were to be achieved each day from this day forward, you may
be in a much different place with your problem a year from now” (pp. 241-242).
Brain training
Brain training has been
developed to “re-strengthen the interconnections between neurons in the
synapses. This synaptic strengthening is the lifeblood of brain
plasticity…Intensive exercise of the groups of nerve cells whose
neurotransmitters enable learning and vivify memory revitalizes the brain,
grows the shrunken nerve cells, increases their energy production and
utilization, enabling the production of larger quantities of their
neurotransmitters and revitalizes other parts of the cellular machinery that
improves their effectiveness and their chance for longer-tern
survival…Intensive, serious schedules of learning will increase connections
between synapses and prevent nerve cells from dying…Brain training can
significantly improve the capacity for our brain to enduringly remember what we
see, hear, feel or learn and can improve the strength of the associative memory
processes that guide our neurological progressions in thinking, reasoning and
acting…It can improve our abilities to broaden and agilely control our
attention windows and our shifts of attention, to take in more information with
sharper separations or more useful integration in vision, listening, feeling
and in our other senses. And we can
improve our ability to suppress noises and chatter and distractions, to help us
stay on track…It can re-strengthen specific skills that support independent
lives” (pp. 188-190).
“To the extent that your
daily habits and activities can be performed unthinkingly with minimal effort
and little serious attention, you are slowly taking your brain offline – in the
long run, permanently. Every moment
your brain is offline, you are a little less alive. …You should try to challenge your brain with
NEW experiences and learning. Working with seriousness of purpose to acquire or
to improve a new ability every month or two or three…Try to work on a demanding
level, at the cutting edge of which you’ll improve your abilities faster…Find
exercises that are inherently satisfying and rewarding. The more positive good
feelings you get from your activities, the more your brain has been turning on
it “Save it” machinery. The best kinds of activities are those that encompass
new learning and that demand that you pay attention to the details of what you
see or hear or feel or smell and at the same time involve grander and more
complex planning or performance challenges as you progress…You’re making the
most real progress when the task difficulty always requires a challenging level
of performance…The key to brain change is close, serious, highly attentive
engagement at a level on which you are continuously challenging yourself” (pp. 202-203).
Practical examples of the ways
Mike stimulates his own brain growth:
- Uses the internet-delivered brain exercises at BrainHQ (that he and his colleagues developed) for about 20 minutes a day.
- Gardens and puts up the produce in jams, preserves, sauces, “anything that seems interesting or fun.”
- Does a crossword puzzle every weekend and the completion of a jigsaw puzzle with 1,000 to 1,500 pieces with family members and friends once every couple of weeks.
- Walks daily 30-40 minutes in his neighborhood, using different routes when possible, paying close attention to everything he sees, hears and smells in the external world. He also changes the speed, length of stride and posture in walking to add variety to his pace and exercise his brain’s ability to make all the necessary adjustments, walking off path whenever possible.
- Substitutes another form of exercise for walking a couple times a week – i.e., ping pong, golf, “anything that…turns up the dimmer switch in my brain.”
- Has regular social interaction with friends, “being determined to bring as many positive moments in the lives of others as I can. I know – if the message is properly received – that this is good for their brains but I also know that it is good for my brain. Delivering little doses of happiness…makes me happy. If I want to keep my dopamine machinery alive, this is a very good and simple way to do it.
- With his wife also tries to find lots of ways to extend our help and friendliness in as many good directions as possible.
- Reads 2 or more books a week – for fun and for understanding. Turns off TV on weekends. Does everything to improve in strategic planning, mental rehearsal and fast responding, coordination and accuracy (pp.225-229).