Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life

particular skill. For example, when you learned to ride a bicycle, you 
used more muscles and neurons at fi rst as you wobbled; then, once 
you learned to ride effi ciently, less muscular effort and fewer neu-
rons were required, and your ride was much smoother and faster. 
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10 Rew i r e
Yo u r
B r a i n
The neurons that were required to fi re with their partners had 
teamed up and wired together. 
As you become more talented at a specifi c skill, a greater amount 
of space in your brain is devoted to making that possible. Alvaro 
Pascual - Leone of Harvard Medical School used transcranial mag-
netic stimulation (TMS) to measure specifi c areas of the cortex. He 
studied blind people who read braille and found that the cortical 
maps for their reading fi ngers were larger than the cortical maps 
for their other fi ngers and also for the fi ngers of sighted readers. In 
other words, the sensitivity of their reading fi ngers required more 
space. Thus, cultivated movement enhances neuroplasticity, which 
creates extra space in the brain. 
In another example of the power of neuroplasticity, musicians 
who play string instruments were examined to see if their brains had 
reorganized to accommodate more space. There was no difference 
between the string - instrument players and the nonmusicians in 
how much space was made available in the sensory motor strip (the 
area in the center of the brain that controls movement and physical 
sensation) for the fi ngers of the right hand (in right - handed players). 
However, the area of the brain devoted to the fi ngers of the left hand 
(in right - handed players) showed a dramatic difference. The fi ngers 
of the left hand must be nimble and dexterous in order to make all 
the fretting movements. The cortical space devoted to the fi ngers 
involved in fretting was signifi cantly greater in these musicians than 
in nonmusicians. This difference was greatest if the musician had 
started playing the instrument before the age of twelve. In other 
words, although this use - dependent neuroplasticity occurs during 
adulthood, it is more dramatic the earlier and the longer that the 
person plays the instrument. 
Not only does behavior change the structure of the brain through 
neuroplasticity; just thinking about or imagining particular behaviors 
can change brain structure as well. For example, researchers have 
shown that simply imagining a session of piano practice contributes 
to neuroplasticity in the area of the brain associated with the fi nger 
movements of playing the piano. Thus, mental practice alone con-
tributes to the rewiring of the brain.
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F i r i n g t h e R i g h t C e l l s To g e t h e r
11
How Neuroplasticity Occurs 
A process called
long - term potentiation
(LTP) occurs when the exci-
tation between cells is prolonged. This strengthens the connections 
between the cells and makes them more apt to fi re together in the 
future. Thus, LTP is relatively long - lasting. 
LTP essentially strengthens the affi nity between neurons by 
reconfi guring their electrochemical relationship. On the sending 
side of the synapse, the stores of glutamate (the excitatory neu-
rotransmitter) are enhanced, and the receptor side is reconfi gured 
to receive more. The voltage on the receptor side becomes stronger 
in its resting state, which attracts more glutamate. If the fi ring 
between these neurons continues, the genes within the neurons 
are turned on in order to construct more building blocks for the 
infrastructure and enhance the relationship. 
One of the most important players in both neuroplasticity and 
neurogenesis is something called