[38]
Graham Lawton, “Is It Worth Going to the Mind Gym?,” New
Scientist, January 12, 2008.
[39]
The workings of synapses are extraordinarily complicated,
influenced by a wide array of chemicals including transmitters like
glutamate (which encourages the transfer of electrical signals between
neurons) and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid, which inhibits the transfer
of the signals) and various modulators, like serotonin, dopamine,
testosterone, and estrogen, that alter the efficacy of the transmitters. In rare
cases, the membranes of neurons fuse, allowing electrical signals to pass
without the mediation of synapses. See LeDoux, Synaptic Self, particularly
49-64.
[40]
Eric R. Kandel, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New
Science of Mind (New York: Norton, 2006), 198-207. See also Bruce E.
Wexler, Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change
(Cambridge, MAMIT Press, 2006), 27-29.
[41]
Kandel, In Search of Memory, 202-3.
[42]
LeDoux, Synaptic Self, 3.
[43]
The use of the visual cortex in reading Braille was documented in an
experiment undertaken by Alvaro Pascual-Leone in 1993. See Doidge, Brain
That Changes Itself, 200.
[44]
McGovern Institute for Brain Research, “What Drives Brain Changes
in Macular Degeneration?,” press release, March 4, 2009.
[45]
Sandra Blakesley, “Missing Limbs, Still Atingle, Are Clues to
Changes in the Brain,” New York Times, November 10, 1992.
[46]
In some of the most promising experimental treatments for
Alzheimer’s disease, currently being tested with considerable success in
mice, drugs are used to promote plastic synaptic changes that strengthen
