Quiet Leadership

IT’S EASY TO CREATE NEW WIRING

Whenever you read a book or have a conversation, the experience causes physical changes in your brain.

GEORGE JOHNSON (1991)

Until just twenty years ago scientists thought our brain was all wired up by early childhood, and then slowly declined in complexity, with neurons dying away over time and our links becoming weaker as we aged. The theory was that we couldn’t regrow or make new connections between our neurons. This seemed logical given that children went through a phase of easy learning which slowed down at a certain point, and that we seemed to become more forgetful as we got older. All this has changed with an exciting new domain within neuroscience called neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity grew out of ...