HOW NEUROPLASTICITY HELPS LEARNING & MEMORY SKILLS

HOW NEUROPLASTICITY HELPS LEARNING & MEMORY SKILLS

The brain’s ability to remove aging neuronal synaptic networks while creating newer networks improves learning and memory. The more neuronal synapses that become activated will improve our learning abilities. These neuronal triggers can alter pre-existing synaptic networks for better efficiency or generate new neuronal connections for overall density.

Learning affects the brain in two different ways, neither of which would be attainable without the special plasticity of our brains. In response to a new experience or unique information, neuroplasticity allows either an alteration to the structure of already existing synaptic connections between neurons, or forms brand-new synaptic connections between neurons. The latter leads to an increase in overall synaptic density, while the former merely makes existing synaptic pathways more efficient or suitable. In either way, the brain is remolded to take in this new data and, if useful, retain it. 

While the precise mechanism that allows this process to occur is still unclear, scientists theorize that long-term memories are formed successfully when “reverbration” occurs. That occurs when Short-term memory impulses then electrochemically transform into long-term memories. The brain is a massive neuro-communication center. It is constantly learning and remembering, while continuously building new and negating old synaptic connections.

When we are first exposed to something new, that information enters our short-term memory, which depends mostly upon chemical and electrical processes known as synaptic transmission to retain information, rather than deeper and more lasting structural changes such as those mentioned above. The electrochemical impulses of short-term memory stimulate one neuron, which then stimulates another. The key to making information last, however, occurs only when the second neuron repeats the impulse back again to the first. This is most likely to happen when we perceive the new information as especially important or when a certain experience is repeated fairly often. In these cases, the neural “echo” is sustained long enough to kick plasticity into high gear, leading to lasting structural changes that hard-wire the new information into the neural pathways of our brains. 

These changes result either in an alteration to an existing brain pathway, or in the formation of a brand new one. In this way, the new information or sensory experience is cemented into what seems, at its present moment, to be the most useful and efficient location within the massive neuro-communication network. Further repetition of the same information or experience may lead to more modifications in the connections that house it, or an increase in the number of connections that can access it – again, as a result of the amazing plasticity of our brains.

Learning new and interesting information then committing that information to long term memory through the process of reverbration can best be attained by learning to focus, to be totally aware of your mental, emotional and physical state of being, and knowing that you can achieve the desired brainwave state at will. This is the basis of brainwave focus training. 

 

Brainwave focus training is based on brain neuroplasticity and is best achieved through the utilization of light and sound frequency stimulation. Pulsed visual and audio frequencies are used to entrain the mind and guide our brainwaves to targeted states of awareness, be it Beta, Alpha, Theta or Delta. By using a light and sound machine the user can access the ideal learning state, Theta (4-7Hz), for maximizing their learning ability and through remembering the new information improve their brain’s ability to reverberate.