The REAL brain drain: Modern technology - including violent video games - is changing the way our brains work, says neuroscientist | the Daily Mail
I'm a neuroscientist and my day-to-day research at Oxford University strives for an ever greater understanding - and therefore maybe, one day, a cure - for Alzheimer's disease.
But one vital fact I have learnt is that the brain is not the unchanging organ that we might imagine.
It not only goes on developing, changing and, in some tragic cases, eventually deteriorating with age, it is also substantially shaped by what we do to it and by the experience of daily life.
When I say "shaped", I'm not talking figuratively or metaphorically; I'm talking literally.
At a microcellular level, the infinitely complex network of nerve cells that make up the constituent parts of the brain actually change in response to certain experiences and stimuli.
The brain, in other words, is malleable - not just in early childhood but right up to early adulthood, and, in certain instances, beyond.
The surrounding environment has a huge impact both on the way our brains develop and how that brain is transformed into a unique human mind.
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