An
unfortunate misconception regarding the brain is that we are "hard
wired" to behave a certain way, much like a radio. The resulting
belief system is that we can not change what we think or do, any more
than a radio can become a calculator, or a leopard can change its
spots. This belief system is unfortunate in that it provides an easy
excuse for negative behaviour:
"I get my bad temper
from my father"
or
"depression runs in my family".
This
belief is not only wrong, it is spectacularly wrong, because it
dis-empowers the believer into a pigeon-holed life style of
inevitability, and overlooks the individual's ability
to thrive.
Belief
systems are difficult to change because they are subconscious
structures - we are not aware that they even exist - and yet they are
the underlying rules that govern every aspect of our personalities,
from our cultures to our favourite colours.
Neuroplasticity
While
some areas in the brain have specific functions, when it comes to
belief systems, neuroscientists since Freud acknowledge the brain's
quality of neuroplasticity, meaning its ability to adapt to
the surroundings. Beliefs are not set in stone, they change according
to the level of knowledge that we possess about our surrounding
world. (Consider Santa Clause, or where babies come from.) We may
believe that anxiety is inherited
genetically, until we become convinced that it is nothing but learned
behaviour. At such an "Aha" moment, our belief system
changes, and we subconsciously adapt our behaviour according the new
information.
Genetics
vs Behaviour
According
to scientist Gerald Edelman, the human cortex alone has thirty
billion neurons capable of making a million billion synaptic
connections.
Exactly
how this many neurons (brain cells) co-ordinate and cause human
behaviour remains to be explained. What can be seen using current
scanning equipment is that neurons from all areas of the brain
contribute to behaviour, and that "neural networks" can be
said to form within the brain, connecting neurons to accomplish
certain actions, reactions, and thoughts.
"Neural
networks form spontaneously, by association. If I ask: "Do you
like fish?", within nanoseconds your brain produces a set of
connections to information stored in diverse areas of your brain.
Some information is conscious, like memories of your experiences with
fish, or of people who are associated with those memories, and some
of that information is subconscious, like the response of attraction
or revulsion, like or dislike. Psychologists refer to this set of
thoughts as a belief system,
neurologists call it a neural network. This is your belief
system about fish. You like it or don't like it based on your
knowledge, memories, emotions, associations, and so forth, and all of
this is merely learned information."
Andrew
Wilding
Creating Neural Networks (Belief
Systems)
In
his research at Harvard Medical School, neuroscientist Alvero
Pascual-Leone gave his volunteer subjects a simple piano exercise to
learn, using TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to map the motor
cortex of each participant. After just one week of practising, new
neural networks were observed. The repetition of practice was
rewiring the brain.
"Neurons
that fire together wire together"
Hebb's
Law
Behavioural
adjustments occur when the brain creates a neural network that causes
the suggested (desired) behaviour. Over a course treatments during
which the desired behaviour is practised, (hypnotic
rehearsal) the number of neural pathways in the network
increases, thus strengthening the behaviour pattern into a habit.
"Neuroplasticity
is an impressive sounding word, but it really describes a very simple
process. It refers to the ability of neurons to always forge new
connections. Neuroplasticity, at its essence, is the process of the
brain wiring and rewiring itself."
John
Kehoe
Copywrite
2011 William Shand marketting@NBSR.co.za
http://www.normandoidge.com/normandoidge.com/MAIN.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580438,00.html
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