The plasticity of the brain and learning
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PALM TO PALM A seemingly simple exercise in pairs. Sitting opposite each other within arm’s reach, pressing palm to palm. Maggie’s only instruction. We wait … A listening … tremulous vibrations in Jonathan’s fingertips … tiny shifts back and forth. Maggie talked about the language of constraints … THE BRAIN We develop habitual paths for action/cognition in our brain. Yet alternative paths are possible, lying dormant. The habitual path is the path of least resistance. To develop new paths or ways of being, we may need to block the habitual paths. Closing off one of the senses, like being blindfolded, assists this process. attention assists learning newborn infants have a high and constant supply of nucleus basalis. It is thought to facilitate learning – I need to read up on this, as I didn’t catch all of Maggie’s explanation.  The function of nucleus basalis in the brain Maggie asked us to draw our brain. Then draw the functions of our own brain that were strongly or weakly developed.  My idea of my brain as a distributed entity, with dark swamps of creative ferment  |