Attitudes promote neuro-plasticity

Two friends whom I have known for years developed two different attitudes to face the cluster head ache they suffered from. Both received neurological help and took medicines as and when needed. 

One persisted with all the medical advice and still has recurrent attacks of headache after ten years. He lives with some anxiety about the next relapse. Sometimes he would need 48 hours to recover fully. 

The other learned 'adaptation skills' to increase his threshold for pain and used some principles of cognitive behaviour therapy and self training to alter his attitude to head ache. He carries on with his regular rhythm even when he has an attack of headache, which is infrequent. He mentioned to me that his brain is getting re-educated to pain tolerance through his mental attitude and self-regulation. 

I had not fully understood this principle in brian development, till I read this book two years back, whose front cover is reproduced here, 'The Brain that changes itself'. The author suggests from a large volume of personal experiences that, 'our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains-even into old age'. He attributes to this neuro-plasticity. The author suggests from well documented stories that the architecture of the brain can change, from real stories of full recovery of people who suffered from stroke and paralysis, including a woman who could function well although she had only one half of brain.

During my thirty five years in neuro-developmental practice, I too can now recollect  some instances of almost full recovery of children who suffered from Infantile Hemiplegia.

I was stopped by a young man in an air port sometime back with a question, 'Are you Dr. Mathew of Ashirvad?'. I turned to greet him and had no recollection of having met him. He remembered him being brought to Ashirvad Child Development and Research Centre, Chennai by his parents for his hemiplegia on the right side, till he was about seven years, when his parents relocated in Delhi. He recalled from what he heard from his parents that he was making gradual recovery over those five years or so he was visiting us at Chennai. He talked  about  remarkable and incremental recovery since he took to swimming, playing piano and cricket. Now he is a computer engineer working with THE Microsoft in the USA. There was noting of a residual limitation I could make out, from his speech, movement or co-ordination. 

There are other stories of children, equally impressive to suggest neuro-plasticity as a reality. 

An infant from six weeks of age has been visiting me regularly with her parents, with hemiplegia. I have noticed many objective parameters of recovery beyond the benefits of physical therapy, which she is undergoing during the last three months.

No child is likely to stay disadvantaged neuro-developmentally after suffering from a neuro-developmental insult.  

I am tempted to believe that, an enabled and confident child overcomes his challenges better. 

Let me introduce this book for  leisurely reading, to help us to believe in the resilience of our brain. 

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)