Chapter 24 brought up a few perspectives that I would not have never considered. The one that caught my attention was from the electronic age. The first thing that intrigued me was the mention that sound and touch is more important than sight. It is some what true when you think about it. Books use the eyes and that is it. With the electronic age Griffin states, “Whereas the book extended the eye, electronic circuitry extends the central nervous system” (p. 317). This makes me think of neuroplasticity. I know this probably sounds foreign to most of you but I work in a nursing/biology department and we just discussed this. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the nervous system to adapt. You might have heard of a blind person whose sense of hearing increased as they went blind. This is the ability of the nerve cells to form a new connection to the neuron. Alright enough of the medical jargon, my point is that through out time of the different ages as we change how we communicate the neurons change as well. This might be why it is so difficult for some seniors want to experience electronic media. It’s something to think about.
3 comments:
I too thought it was interesting that sound and touch are more important than sight. I would have thought the complete opposite. I guess if you lose you sense of sight than you're other senses (sight, smell, hearing, and touch) become increasingly stronger and you can rely on them more. Whereas if you lose those senses and only have sight, your sight may not get any better than it already is. So in that case I could see why sight is the least important sense.
It is really interesting when you get into topics of biology and neuroplasticity. I don't know much about it, but it definitely seems intriguing. I think it's something we take for granted, but I have to remind myself how true it is that your nervous system will adapt. Take my mother for instance-- she is completely deaf. But the one thing that always amazed me was her other senses, such as her ability to wake up every morning without the assistance of some sort of alarm device. Or the fact that she would wake up when I tried to sneak out of the house when i was younger. Horrible, I know... but point is, I think all of her other senses were heightened since she could not hear.
I'm reading Doidge's "The Brain That Changes Itself." Highly recommended. He approaches the examples and possibilities of neuroplasticity from several different angles. It's hard to believe that some of these findings haven't made a bigger stir -- one scientist helped blind people to see through the sensations created by an electrode under their tongue. The brain simply receives the stimulation and learns to route it to the optic processing area of the brain!!
The possibilities affect us all. The UCSF Memory and Aging Center shows that a steady decline in mental sharpness sets in around age forty. After that we lose about 1% of our short term memory per year. Which doesn't sound like much, but it adds up to 10% per decade.
BUT... this decline isn't inevitable. A big part of the reason that we begin to "lose it" is that we're no longer engaging in the kinds of mental tasks that release the right brain chemicals to keep our minds plastic.
If anyone is interested, I'd refer them to this page from my site which gives more information.
Why Brain Fitness Training Combats Mental Decline With Aging
I'm in the brain fitness business and therefore I'd encourage people to read with appropriate skepticism. But the research and resources are there for anyone to verify for themselves.
Martin Walker
www.mindsparke.com
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