Two important developments have brought me back to this blog after a regrettably long absence. First, FELDENKRAIS® features prominently in a new book by Norman Doidge, M.D., The Brain’s Way of Healing.
I’m so excited about this. Those who love FELDENKRAIS know it’s very difficult to talk about the work. Dr. Doidge is a respected scientist and a best-selling author, so the book has his credibility and it is no doubt well-written and accessible. I bought a copy but I haven’t started it yet. (I’m under time-pressure from the library to read Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps The Score. I may (or may not) have to buy that one, too.)
Next, there’s a lengthy but inspiring video up on YouTube, featuring a symposium on neuroplasticity at the University of Alabama at Birmingham on October 25, 2014. Participants were Norman Doidge, Michael Merzenich, Edward Taub, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is nearly three hours long (you can skip the first 26 minutes). The time spent, however, is more than worthwhile. Here’s a “teaser.”
Everything is Changeable
The discussion included such Feldenkraisian values and strategies as constraint, reversibility, intentionality, autonomy, dignity, and curiosity. Dr. Taub presented video clips of big gains in motor skills and these are impressive indeed. Dr. Merzenich presented a laundry-list of systemic functions his work has shown to be recoverable. “Everything is changeable in a positive way,” he says. The capabilities that can be recovered, despite damage or deterioration, include processing speed, brain chemistry, focus, prediction, memory, immune system function, growth, healing, and coordination.
Merzenich included recovery of social cognition, too. Reattachment is possible to friendship and interpersonal collaboration, where trauma or neglect had compromised those functions. Recoveries like those are vital, he said, because neuroplasticity alone is “not enough to deal with the complexities of life.”
Illustrations courtesy National Institute of Mental Health
HH Dalai Lama asked whether the scientists’ investigations had led to any techniques to reduce the “problematic emotions.” Taub pointed to meditation. Doidge explained that the healing potential indicated in Merzenich’s list affects the whole person, the undivided self. This includes how that self can learn to process aversive emotions. Taub concluded his presentation with a photograph taken by the Hubbell telescope, showing one of those beautiful images of some awesome thing like a galaxy. “This is where we’re headed,” he said. I recall his point was that the possibilities of neuroplasticity are infinite.
Image courtesy Hubble Gallery
A brief mention was also made of Merzenich’s website Brain Headquarters (cute name). This site has Lumosity-like brain-games, but with the added credibility of Dr. Merz. Try a few free games.
I have also just finished Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. Until I went to the Merzenich site, I had thought, wished, hoped, and protectively but apparently self-delusionally believed that all my somatic efforts would protect me from the travails of aging that Gawande describes.
Ummm, maybe not. My Merzenich-games trial has opened my eyes. It’s all very well to vibrate joyfully with the neuroplastic potential described in the symposium. It’s quite another to realize that my own function needs improvement. I mean, like, drastic improvement. I could feel my brain seizing up and my fingers not responding to my urgent direction. I’m glad to say that in another game, aimed at different skills, I did much better. But still. Improvement is called for! Improvement is possible, though, so that’s the good news. Everything is changeable.
P.S. In a comment below, a close friend states her opposition to studies involving other species. She tells me that one of the presenters referred to a study done on white monkeys. I myself recall only the exciting data that was gathered from human testing, only, but if my friend heard the reference, it must be there. I can only hope that the studies were at least interesting, and hopefully fun as well, for the monkeys, even though testing was no doubt imposed on them. I wholeheartedly share in my friend’s pain around the issue of animal testing. 
Dreams Incognito 
I find it VERY difficult to appreciate a field of study that relies on the experimentation of other beings to prove their conclusions.