[xmca] Plasticity and Physiotherapy

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

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
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*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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