This month is Cerebral Palsy month. A month to bring awareness to Cerebral Palsy. It is a term used to describe a group of disorders that affect movement and muscle coordination. It’s caused by brain damage, often occurring during or shortly after birth. While Cerebral Palsy is often considered a lifelong condition, the brain’s plasticity has an amazing way of helping individuals with the function of their limbs.
What is Plasticity?
Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, is the brain’s ability to adapt and reorganise itself in response to learning, experience, or injury. Essentially, the brain has the remarkable ability to form new neural connections and pathways, even after damage or injury. This means that if one part of the brain is affected by injury or disease, other areas of the brain can sometimes compensate by taking over certain functions.
Plasticity allows for the potential of functional recovery. The brain can form new neural connections that help compensate for damaged areas. This leads to improvements in motor skills or cognitive functions. For me, this is what happened. When I move the fingers on my left hand, my right hand copies. That is because the plasticity in my brain saw that there was a problem when I was born. It saw that the problem was only on the left side, and so copied neurons on my right to help my right hand in its ability to function. I think the same applies to my left and right leg. When I wiggle my toes on my left leg, my right attempts to copy.
It is never as strong as the movement my left side makes. It is much slower as well, but the movement is there.
What does this mean?
In the context of cerebral palsy, this concept becomes crucial. Cerebral Palsy is caused by brain damage and affects motor control and coordination. The brain’s plasticity helps to retain some of the function of the limbs, although not as strong as it would have been without the brain damage.
This also doesn’t always work. Sometimes the brain damage is too much that it can only give limited movement to the limbs, if at all. I would also imagine that it doesn’t carry over the pain receptors as I do not always feel pain in my left and right leg straight away.
How does plasticity affect me
To be honest, I think it’s cool. I wriggle my left fingers, and my right fingers copy. As I am typing, my right hand is making biscuits on my lap as the movement is that sort of biscuit movement. Without it, I probably wouldn’t be able to move my hand at all.
Even so, plasticity doesn’t fix the disability. My right hand may be able to copy my left. There are still issues. It is probably plasticity that makes it easy for me to pass items from my left to my right even though my right wouldn’t be able to pick up the item itself or take it off someone else who is offering the item.
I tend to see the plasticity as something that freezes the limb in a time. So because it made the connections when I was a baby, my hand has the motor skills of an infant. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s why, if I do give my hand something to hold, it can drop things without me knowing.
Most of the time, I like seeing it as a party trick.
Challenges associated with Plasticity
While plasticity can aid in keeping certain functions, it doesn’t always lead to perfect outcomes. The brain’s attempts to compensate for damaged areas might lead to maladaptive plasticity. This occurs when the brain creates new pathways that reinforce undesirable behaviours or faulty movements.
For some individuals with Cerebral Palsy, the brain may cause muscles to contract uncontrollably (spasticity). This is the most common type of cerebral palsy. Or it could lead to abnormal postures. Especially when the brain struggles to compensate for damaged motor areas. This can make it difficult to establish functional, voluntary movements.
While the brain can reorganise itself, the process of relearning complex motor skills can be lengthy and may not always lead to perfect or complete recovery. For people with severe forms of Cerebral Palsy, achieving full independence may not always be possible, even with neuroplasticity.
Brain Plasticity and the Role of Therapy in Cerebral Palsy
Physiotherapy and speech therapy can play a central role in stimulating the brain’s plasticity and encouraging functional improvements in individuals with cerebral palsy. For children with Cerebral Palsy, the earlier they begin physical and occupational therapy, the more likely they are to benefit from the brain’s ability to adapt and compensate for motor dysfunction.
That is not to say that therapy cures Cerebral Palsy. It doesn’t, at all. But it can make sure that the part of the brain the plasticity copied and has attempted to heal remains strong so that the person has some function in the affected limbs, if at all possible. That saying, use it or lose it comes to mind. I’d imagine this is especially important with babies. As babies have limited movement anyway, physiotherapy is needed to make sure that those connections it is trying to make remains strong.
Conclusion
Brain plasticity is a magic of nature. It is a complex part of the brain that sees a problem and goes: NOT ON MY WATCH. It tries its best to prevent people with Cerebral Palsy, like myself and a handful of friends, from losing all function of our limbs. Sometimes it has to make a calculated decision. I have flat foot on my right side, for example, but I can still walk.
Sometimes, the damage is so great that all it can do is give very limited movement… or sometimes it can’t even do that, but it’ll try. It is part of every person born and remains with us throughout our lives, on watch, waiting to see if it is needed.
This just shows how truly wonderful our complex bodies can be.