Overview
Center for BrainHealth's Chief Director Sandi Chapman, PhD, shares the impact of daily lifestyle choices on brain health. Of course factors like sleep, diet and exercise make a difference, but she also emphasizes the value of novel experiences in building agile brain networks. Dr. Chapman is co-leader of the BrainHealth Project, a scientific study to measure people’s ability to affect their brain fitness, and she compares the networks comprising the human brain to the massive and complex network governing our air traffic control systems.“”
“Your brain has different hubs in different flight patterns, different connection patterns. Those connections can change, rewire and reconfigure based on how we use it. When part of the brain is not working as well, the brain has the capability to work around things and still get places — it just might take a little bit longer."
– Sandi Chapman, PhD, Founder and Chief Director
Aircraft networks communicate information critical to safe navigation, helping pilots adjust to unexpected challenges, like when a plane is rerouted due to a storm — and your brain does that too: “”
"Neuroplasticity means that our brain’s systems — the neurons and the connections between them — are highly modifiable," she says. "And the way they’re modified is by how we use our brain. The old thinking was that your brain is fixed and set pretty much after adolescence, and nothing could be further from the truth. Our brain changes moment by moment by everything we think, create, and feel. Neuroplasticity just means it’s changing. And it can change in good ways or bad ways."
Read the full article at Prevention
