Neuroplasticity is the concept that the brain can change. Contrary to now debunked views that the brain became ‘fixed’ in childhood, scientists now know that the brain is changeable––or plastic––and that neurons rewire when exposed to repeated stimuli. This scientific concept is a vital to Carr’s theory that our brains are being changed, as neuroplasticity creates the opportunity for him to prove that digital life is indeed having a deep, lasting, and anatomical effect not just on our thinking but on our actual brains.
Neuroplasticity Quotes in The Shallows
The The Shallows quotes below are all either spoken by Neuroplasticity or refer to Neuroplasticity. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
When it came to the brain, the child was indeed, as Wordsworth had written, the father to the man.
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The genius of our brain’s construction is not that it contains a lot of hardwiring but that it doesn’t.
Plastic does not mean elastic.
Chapter 4
Quotes
To read a book was to practice an unnatural process of thought, one that demanded sustained, unbroken attention to a single, static object. It required readers to place themselves at what T.S. Eliot, in Four Quartets, would call “the still point of the turning world.”
The words in books didn’t just strengthen people’s ability to think abstractly; they enriched people’s experience of the physical world, the world outside the book.
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Neuroplasticity Term Timeline in The Shallows
The timeline below shows where the term Neuroplasticity appears in The Shallows. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...of nerves in their hands. This concept of the brain’s plasticity––or ability to change––is called neuroplasticity.
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The concept of neuroplasticity united two differing philosophies on the nature of mind: empiricism and rationalism. Empiricism, exemplified by...
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Much of the evidence for neuroplasticity comes from studies on the brain’s reaction to both physical and mental experiences. Phantom limb...
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Chapter 3
The scientific discovery of neuroplasticity has shed some light on the issue, however. While the basic form of the brain...
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Chapter 9
Worse yet, due to neuroplasticity, the more we use the Internet the more we train the brain to process information...
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