Marion's Reviews > The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

This book was absolutely fascinating. I have always been intrigued by how the brain works and, even though I am not a "science" person, I found this book easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable.

The book is about the recent notion that the brain is "plastic," or malleable. Our brain has the ability to change - through learning, through experience, through our thoughts. It was once thought that the brain was "hardwired," and that certain parts of the brain performed specific tasks and that if those parts died, the person was incapable of performing these tasks. But scientists have proven that, when brain cells are killed, the brain has the capacity to reorganize itself to accomplish tasks. The impact: stroke victims who are paralyzed can recover some mobility, people with OCD can recognize that it's their brain that is causing their stress and can choose actions to help their brain reorganize, senior citizens can perform the right types of activities to stimulate new growth (we're not talking doing crossword puzzles - we mean learning new tasks), children with learning disorders can strengthen the "weak" parts of their brain. The discoveries and experiments depicted in this book are changing the way we view the brain and will impact the way we live.