Chris Rocco
Neuroplasticity & Homuncular Flexibility
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire to new mappings when
improving or learning a skill. The brain may rewire cells to new connections,
strengthening the muscle maps of the brain. Neurons and neural networks change “in
response to new information, sensory stimulation, development, damage, or dysfunction.”
(Rugnetta). For example, boxers and other athletes all started as beginners. Due to
repetitive training for years, the neurons in their brains fire off and rewire constantly,
allowing them to become as skilled as they are now. This applies to basically anything
that requires learning. For years, scientists believed that the brain had specific, non-
changeable wired routes, until the 1960s, when Paul Bach-y-Rita designed experiments in
order to test if the brain has the ability to rewire its neural networks when introduced to
new knowledge.
Paul Bach-y-Rita designed a metal palette, which he would apply to the tongue of
a blind person. The palette would send electrical pulses and vibrations to the tongue,
creating a vision in the brain, allowing the blind patient to be aware of his surroundings.
These pulses stimulated the blind patient’s visual cortices, showing that the brain was
rewiring new pathways, allowing him to see without the eyes. “After patients gained
some familiarity with the device, their brains were able to construct mental
representations of physical spaces and physical objects.” (Rugnetta). This discovery
opened a whole new road for scientists to engage in. Many scientists continued doing
research on neuroplasticity, making new findings on the brain’s rewiring.
Alvaro Pascuel Leone, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, was interested
in how the primary motor map in the brain changes when learning a new skill. He
claimed that “the brain changes with anything you do, including any thought you may
have.” He conducted an experiment with a group of volunteers, involving learning a five-
finger piano exercise. The piano exercise would be performed for two hours every day
for five days.
“At the end of each day’s practice session, they sat beneath a coil of wire that sent a brief
magnetic pulse into the motor cortex of their brain, located in a strip running from the
crown of the head toward each ear. The so-called transcranial-magnetic-stimulation
(TMS) test allows scientists to infer the function of neurons just beneath the coil. In the
piano players, the TMS mapped how much of the motor cortex controlled the finger
movements needed for the piano exercise. What the scientists found was that after a week
of practice, the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over
surrounding areas like dandelions on a suburban lawn.” (Begley).
The brain maps of these volunteers grew significantly in the specific area in which they
store information on piano playing. After these findings, Pascuel Leone did not wish to
stop his experiment there; he then divided the group of people into two groups. One
group continued playing the exercise, and the other stopped. He found that the group that
stopped playing had decreasing brain muscle maps from the specific area, shrinking back
