Question

Briefly describe the functional recovery of brain after brain injury or stroke. explain in your own words!

Answer 1

After injury to the cerebral cortex, as often occurs in stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI), a large portion of the forebrain sensory-motor apparatus is affected, including the frontal and parietal cortex and/or subcortical structures in the striatum and thalamus, resulting in deficits in motor function in the contralateral musculature.

Traumatic brain injury is a serious medical condition that can severely impact a person’s life.

Fortunately, the brain possesses an extraordinary ability to repair itself after a traumatic injury.

This ability is known as Neuroplasticity, and it’s the reason that many brain injury survivors can make good recoveries..

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize neurons in response to learning or experience.

For many years, researchers thought the adult brain was static, that after a certain point in development, the brain could no longer adapt to change.

Today, research shows that the brain is always in a flexible state.

This flexible state is called plasticity.

Brain is composed of over 100 trillion neural connections.

When you experience brain trauma, many of the neural connections you once had become damaged or destroyed.

While the brain does not generate new neurons after an injury, it can compensate for that loss by changing the way information flows throughout the brain.

Through neuroplasticity, the brain can form new neural pathways, and therefore repair some of the damage it sustained.

It can even transfer functions that were once held in damaged parts of the brain to new, healthy areas.

Neuroplasticity doesn’t happen on its own. It requires Repetition.

The more you practice an action, the more you reinforce your brain’s neural pathways. And the stronger those pathways become, the easier it is to perform that action.

For example, to regain speech you must practice speech therapy activities several times per day. The same principle applies if you want to improve your balance, walking skill, and even your short-term memory.