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New Theory Shows How Injured Brain Cope Up With Damage
Stanford postdoctoral fellow Sashank Varma and Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Marcel Justs theory is called 4CAPS, an acronym for Capacity Constrained Concurrent Cortical Activation-based Production System.
The theory suggests that various brain areas volunteer themselves when their strengths are called for, and that they permit less efficient but capable areas to step forward when a specialised area gets injured or disabled, as may occur as a result of a stroke.
The researchers have made a number of computational models to demonstrate this process, such as a model that understands English sentences. They say when a stroke damages the part of the brain involved in language processing called Brocas area, located in the left prefrontal cortex, the corresponding site on the right side of the brain often becomes activated during language processing, even within hours after a stroke.
According to the theory, the same dynamic allocation mechanism that allows brain areas to volunteer themselves on a moment-by-moment basis would also come into play if Brocas area were damaged, and would allow any excess computational load to spill over to the right hemisphere mirror site on a more permanent basis.
The researchers also suggest that upon damage to some brain areas as a result of Alzheimers disease, additional helper areas start performing such tasks as they normally do not perform in people without the disease. Many brain-imaging studies have shown as the nature of the task changes, so does the set of activating brain areas. It is as though substitutions of team players are being made dynamically in response to changes in the game, said Just, the D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology.
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