Understanding and promoting plasticity within the human visual cortex

儿童和成人之间的一个基本区别是，儿童的大脑有更大的变化倾向；也就是说，儿童的大脑比成人的大脑更具可塑性。成人大脑的可塑性降低对学习新技能和从因创伤、疾病或异常发育而造成的脑损伤中恢复有着直接的影响。这项拟议的研究将解决两个关键问题：1)如何在健康的成年人大脑中增加可塑性？以及，2)人类大脑的可塑性如何以及为什么会随着年龄的增长而降低？这项研究将专注于视觉大脑区域，因为有丰富的神经科学数据与动物的视觉皮质发育和可塑性有关，这些数据可以直接为人类大脑可塑性的研究提供信息。

One basic difference between children and adults is that children’s brains have a much greater propensity for change; i.e. children’s brains are more ‘plastic’ than adult brains. Reduced plasticity in the adult brain has direct implications for the learning of new skills and recovery from damage to the brain through trauma, disease or abnormal development. The proposed research will address two key questions: 1) how can plasticity be increased in the healthy adult human brain? and, 2) how and why does human brain plasticity decrease with age? The research will focus on visual brain areas because there is a wealth of neuroscientific data relating to visual cortex development and plasticity in animals that can directly inform research into human brain plasticity.