Physiological consequences of morphologically detectable synaptic plasticity: potential uses for examining recovery following damage

A growing literature indicates that brain structure is modified in various ways with experience. In this paper we briefly survey evidence that the bra in retains the capacity to modify its organization in response to demands, including demands resulting from learning, throughout the lifetime. We atte mpt to address whether these experience-induced changes are accompanied by physiological changes that indicate a functional reorganization of the brai n. The kinds of morphological changes that have been observed following bra in injury appear to be very similar to those seen after learning. The simil arity suggests that many of the basic mechanisms of synaptic change in the brain may be utilized for both functions. This suggests that we can take ad vantage of some of the methods used to test the changes in physiology with behavioral manipulations to examine the damaged brain. We advocate utilizin g electrophysiological techniques to measure functional recovery from brain injury as these may be useful in evaluating both spontaneous recovery from damage and the therapeutic benefits of training, or other therapies. (C) 2 000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.