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[xmca] Plasticity and Physiotherapy



On the theme of empirical evidence and the latest discoveries of neuroscience, this is one which has intrigued me, especially since it became personal. So far as I know, physiotherpists have known for at least two generations that brain damage can be repaired by physical exercise. But this scientific, empirical knowledge, coexisted, at least in some countries, with a dogma taught in school biology classes, that "no new brain cells are created after age X," making a total mystery (SFAICS) of all manner of learning processes which everyone knows about from daily experience. Then we hear from the tribunes of advanced neuroscience, armed with all sorts of advanced brain imaging equipment, about "brain plasiticity" and what lowly physiotherpists know about with their own hands and patients knew about with their own experience of rehabilitation, became a new scientific discovery solely because (SAFAICS) it was expressed in the language of "the latest discoveries of neuroscience." On the plus side Norman Doigue's campaign has had a psychological impact on people undergoing rehabilitation, by giving the stamp of neuroscientific approval to the physiotherapists' work and giving renewed hope.

Is there anyone who knows about the history of science in this area that can explain how this fiction was maintained?

Andy
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*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts

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