The Brain's Way of Healing

November 3, 2014
Doidge (The Brain That Changes Itself) explores the idea of “using the body to treat the brain” by surveying specialists and patients who’ve personally experienced the power of neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to reorganize itself and heal in cases of injury or deprivation. He offers personal accounts: a psychiatrist who used his own leg fracture to map how the brain processes pain, discovering that visualizing those areas helped beat his chronic pain; a Parkinson’s patient who rigorously walks to control his debilitating symptoms; and a severely dyslexic boy whose communication, among other mental activities, miraculously improved after aural stimulation. Doidge also explores the medical breakthroughs concerning electric stimulation, such as the discovery of how to activate the tongue’s sensory receptors to send “‘spikes’ to balance neurons” throughout the brain (greatly aiding Parkinson’s, stroke, and multiple sclerosis patients) and the use of stimulation in a device coined the “electronic ear” that has been fundamental in listening therapy to help children with autism. Each new therapy gives reason for hope, but, Doidge asserts, the “true marvel is less the techniques themselves than the way that... the brain has evolved neuroplastic abilities and a mind that can direct its own unique restorative process of growth.”

November 15, 2014
Doidge (Psychiatry/Univ. of Toronto; The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, 2007) reports on continuing advances in our understanding of the human brain and its unique way of healing.The author's first book chronicled revolutionary new insights into how the brain can be helped to restructure itself in response to injury. Here, Doidge interviews a second generation of "scientists, doctors and patients," whom he calls "neuroplasticians." He recounts his discussion with an American physician specializing in the treatment of chronic pain who pioneered a new method using mental imagery, after he suffered a serious injury. Doidge visited with a controversial 77-year-old sufferer of Parkinson's disease who claims to have been able to reverse his symptoms (and slow the underlying process of deterioration) by focused exercise. One of the most fascinating characters is an Israeli medical practitioner who developed a unique healing method for patients suffering muscular injuries, based on insights from the practice of jujitsu. Doidge uses these and other clinical accounts to illustrate what he claims are three fundamental processes that can be tapped to unleash the brain's healing capacity: the necessity of countering the brain's adaptation to a lost function by "learned nonuse"; the importance of isolating damaged neurons from healthy ones; and the significance of recognizing that "the organic living brain is quite the opposite of an engineered machine with hardwired circuits that can perform only a limited number of actions that it has been designed to do." Doidge's takeaway message is that mental activity correlates with neuronal activity, but we still do not know where thought takes place. "This mystery of the mind remains unsolved," he writes. A lively, anecdotal account of potential new directions that may point the way to major therapeutic breakthroughs.

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March 15, 2015

Historically researchers have thought that once the brain's neurons were destroyed they could not be replaced. However, in the latest work from Doidge (The Brain That Changes Itself), the author shares numerous case studies on how elastic the brain can be. By using light, energy, sound, vibration, movement, and other natural processes, the brain's healing capacities are reoriented and adjusted so that patients with chronic illnesses, pain, debilitating strokes, or learning disorders can discover how to normalize their lives and abide the ailments that they have struggled with for years. In one instance a patient with Parkinson's disease has clocked hundreds of miles walking; an activity that he must concentrate to do and that retrains his brain and alleviates his Parkinson's symptoms. Doidge also describes how walking and other exercise help to defer or prevent dementia and how laser light therapy can heal sick brain tissue. Through interviews with pioneering neuroplasticians, this thoroughly engaging book sheds fresh light on long-term health issues that have haunted physicians and patients looking for new methods of surviving those challenges they face. VERDICT A fascinating study on brain science that shows the way to major therapeutic discoveries.--Rebecca Hill, Zionsville, IN

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014
The brain is plastic from cradle to grave, writes psychiatrist Doidge in this sequel to his first book, The Brain That Changes Itself (2007). And that unique capability, neuroplasticity, allows the brain to mend itself and even boost its function. Experiences of patients, work of clinicians, and stories about scientists form the core of Doidge's claims about the success of neuroplastic healing for a multitude of brain disorders: stroke, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, and autism. These treatments usually combine mental activity, heightened awareness, and various forms of energy (light, motion, sound, electricity, vibration). Readers learn about a man with Parkinson's disease whose symptoms improve with a regimen of fast walking and concentration, a surgeon who uses low-intensity laser therapy to treat brain injuries and rewire the brain, and a team of researchers who help a man suffering from multiple sclerosis by having him use a device that is placed in the mouth and stimulates the tongue. Mingling alternative medicine, current concepts of neuroscience, and anecdotes, Doidge provides people with plenty to think about.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)