Podcast 199: Lecture

This episode is all about Neuroplasticity. It starts very early in life, infants contain a whole web of wired connections and as children's brains grow certain brain maps get activated, while other brain maps begin to disappear if they are not developed or cultivated. This is how neuroplasticity begins to develop. With this understanding, we can start to learn how we can utilize neuroplasticity to better ourselves today. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com. SUMMARY KEYWORDSneuroplasticity, nervous system, experiences, brain, infants, trauma, cataracts, self-regulation, spaciousness, create, repetitive movements, develop, fluid, explored, adults, gestation, regulate, circuits, cranial-sacral therapy, talk Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to [email protected]. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode. So nervous system when you talk about neuroplasticity, we talk about the brain we talk about the nervous system. And as young people, we get customized based on preferences based on our environment, based on how we respond to experiences externally. So we need to bring in the conversation of the in utero, we call that gestation, birth, and bonding. These are very important, early experiences that actually shape our brain health and our neuroplasticity potential. So neuroplasticity starts very early in life, infants contain a whole web of wired connections again, those of you that are parents or grandparents, and you see, you know, the infants crawling around and exploring, they are in a neuroplasticity soup. And certain brain maps get activated, other brain maps begin to disappear if they are not developed or cultivated. This is how neuroplasticity begins to develop. And one of the most important aspects of neuroplasticity is our social engagements. And these begin to shape our nervous system. So for infants, toddlers and children here is a picture there's a lot of spaciousness in the synapses in the axons. Now, with adults, we don't have that kind of spaciousness anymore. But as young, young children, this is what they're doing in terms of their neuroplasticity. Social Engagement is very important. Now, in neuroplasticity in this certain circuits in the brain, fortunately, there's some that are hard to change, like our heartbeat, our breathing or digestion, even our pupil response to light. So this is an important distinction that some circuits we don't want to change. We want to support our nervous system to help us with these autonomic experiences. So in the child's brain, there's an incredible potential for neuroplasticity. Now, if we bring in trauma, and all of us have experienced trauma in our life, it's an imprint that affects us and in studying things like Somatic Experiencing Peter Levine's work cranial sacral therapy, continuum movement, perinatal, and prenatal therapy. These are all things that I've explored around how does trauma affect our eyes, our vision, our brain, all have our sensory systems or motor experiences. So the thing about experiences and trauma is it's the way we respond to the experience. If you have support, you're not going to be traumatized. But if you were abandoned or you didn't get the treatments or the experiences that you needed, you didn't get the social connection, then this is going to shape your nervous system and it creates that trauma response. So, in my I practice working with kids over the years, congenital cataracts, lazy eye strabismus, you know,