Research report 2016 - Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Brain plasticity and the inverted U: On the time course of experience-dependent plastic brain changes in humans

Authors
Wenger, Elisabeth; Lindenberger, Ulman
Departments
Forschungsbereich Entwicklungspsychologie
Summary
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development investigate the time course of plasticity. Results show an initial increase followed by decrease of gray matter volume during skill acquisition. These plastic changes would have gone unnoticed, had a standard pretest-posttest design been employed. Such two-occasion designs are inadequate to identify the time course of plastic changes. Future research on human neuroplasticity needs research designs and theories that take the nonlinear dynamics of behavioral and cerebral variability and change into account.

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