In the last ten years a series of discoveries has changed our ideas about our mind/body connection. The evidence is building that one cannot distinguish the mind from the body, as previously thought.
There has been a great deal of advancement in the field of traumatic brain injury in the past twenty years, but unfortunately the insurance industry would just assume go back in time to the 1970’s and stay there.
The notion of “neuroplasticity,” that is the ability of the human brain to repair and rewire after injury or change in function, has undergone dramatic changes in the last 120 years. As early as the late 1800’s the father of modern psychology, William James, wrote extensively on the notion of neuroplasticity of the brain and quite accurately for his time.
A widely publicized study recently published in The Lancet, where three patients in a “vegetative state” showed signs of consciousness on EEG testing, will have important ramifications on brain injury rehabilitation.
By the time a patient gets to the emergency room, unconscious from a trauma, the primary injury to the brain – that is the structural damage to the brain tissue, neurons and blood vessels of the brain has already occurred.
I just read Douglas Fields fascinating new book “The Other Brain” in which he brings together all of the recent findings which are now causing the overlooked glia in the brain to be studied and appreciated.