I Was A Teenage Neuro-Plasticity Junkie

Ok… I wasn’t exactly a teenager, but “I Was A Twenty-Something Neuro Plasticity Junkie” doesn’t have the same ring.

Subject-line cuteness aside, I was in my mid-twenties when I took my first big-girl toke on neural-reorganization.

The year was 1991-ish, and I’d just been blessed with a hand-me-down Tandy computer.

Pre-Windows and ancient even then, the awkward hulk of black plastic limped along at the speed-of-lethargy. It required that commands be typed in (slowly) before it would agree to do even the simplest of tasks.

There were no visual cues to rely on, no cute little folder icons or program logos to click on. This frustrating interface meant I had to actually *think* about the directories I created - to think about them, and remember how they were structured.

The whole thing gave me a headache.

But after a period of floundering around, I finally grokked it. (For the Science Fiction Deprived among us, “to grok” something means to empathize and understand it so deeply that it becomes part of you.)

I don’t use the term “grok” lightly here - Learning to use DOS directory structure did something to my brain. The connections were made in a flash, a flash that seemingly flipped a switch deep inside my brain..

…and Things *happened*.

For at least two weeks, I couldn’t focus; I drifted in a sleepless, awakeless state. When I closed my eyes (or just turned my attention inward) I could *see* line after line of words, code and even illustrations scrolling up the inside of my eyelids, lime green neon against a black background; a stereotypical image of an early computer monitor.

It felt as though my brain was reformatting, reorganizing, going through a complex series of commands that restructured how I stored and accessed memories and information.

I remember laughing, frustrated and a bit astounded at the process… and then it was over.

Freakishly over.

Freakish, because my thoughts DID seem to be better organized. Rather than suffering some sort of psychotic break, my brain seemed to have rewired some of its internal processes.

I’ve always found the story amusing if strange, but in context of neuro-plasticity, it makes a good bit of sense. Responding to the new demands of logic and memory, the structure and neural pathways my brain may have *actually* changed.

Not too long ago, it was common knowledge that brain cells stopped regenerating around the time of maturity; “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and all that. But as it turns out, some braincells do continue to regenerate and form, and existing neural connections shift, change, and reorganize. So even fully mature, and even aging brains can learn new tricks. (I’m pretty sure dogs can, too)

Was what I experienced an example of this neuroplasticity? I think so. My thought processes seemed to change dramatically, and permanently.

To be honest, it was a rush… over time, I would seek that re-organization rush again and again. I experienced it at least twice more; once, in the realm of spirituality, and again, in an understanding of human relationships and hierarchy. Each flash seemed to lead to the next, and over time, it culminated in a driving thirst for knowledge and understanding. Each time, the changes were so profound that while I could remember that I hadn’t always “thought this way”, but I could no longer follow my earlier thought processes, any more than I could follow my thought processes as a toddler.

Finally, a few years ago, an emotional trauma seemingly put temporary hold on the changes - or rather, it introduced a different kind of adaptation and change, to cope with the grief and changing circumstances. There was a type of beauty in that adjustment, as well.

But now that I’m through the trauma, I find that I’m frustrated. I want that rush again. I want that all consuming fire of neural growth, the ever expanding world view. I’m tired of sitting on my mental laurels. Some of the neural pathways built in those previous moments of plasticity seem to have fallen by the way side, and I miss them.

And so, no longer a teenage junkie, I’m a forty-something in withdrawal.

Anxious and dull-witted, I hop from one project to the next, in search of the next big mind-fix. So far, everything I’ve explored (from 3-D graphics to blogging to my recent explorations of video-editing) has been a temporary fix, none of it reaching that all consuming burst of neurological light that creates a new enlightened world-view.

I’ll find it, I will! And when I do, I’ll write about it, blathering endlessly in a near-manic state that will have most of you convinced I need psychicatric treatment.

Till then, you might want to hop over to SharpBrains, where Alvaro has posted some interesting quotes from Charles Darwin’s autobiography. According to his own observations, Darwin’s brain seems to have rewired itself over time, adjusting to his interests and focus: a pretty clear case of adult neuro-plasticity.

It’s worth a read. We may not have brainscans to prove the changes in my brain, or in Darwin’s, either for that matter — but I figure my anecdotal evidence is at least as strong as his! (Even if I haven’t yet managed to alter the course of modern thinking. Yet. Ha!) _________________________________

MindTWEAK: “A junky runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start” -William S. Burroughs _________________________________