What are nutraceuticals?

Nutraceuticals is a collective broad used to describe any product that is derived from food sources having an extra health benefits in addition to the basic nutritional value found in foods. The word nutraceutical is made combining two words nutrient means nourishing food component and pharmaceutical that relates with a medical drug.

Probiotics are live bacteria and/or yeasts that are good for you, especially your digestive system. Your body is full of bacteria, both good and bad. Probiotics are often called beneficial or helpful bacteria as they help keep your gut clean and healthy. You have trillions of microbes on and in your body living in gut, mouth, skin, urinary tract, vagina of a female and lungs.

Blog by Sundyota Lifecare | What is Brain Plasticity?

BRAIN PLASTICITY - AN OVERVIEW

Brain Plasticity:

Our brain is very tricky! It has immense capacity to learn many things, and it keeps learning, experiencing, changing, and adapting to it. And this process is endless. This ability of the brain to change and adapt to an experience is called Brain plasticity or Neuroplasticity.

Plasticity means the brain's flexibility, defined as being ‘easily influenced, trained, or controlled’. ‘Neuro’ refers to neurons – the nerve cells that make up the entire nervous system. Thus, neuroplasticity means when nerve cells change or adjust.

Unlike a computer, the brain processes sensory as well as motor signals in parallel. It has many neural pathways, and they can easily replicate each other’s function; thus correcting a potential or temporary loss of function by re-routing signals along different pathways.

Types of Brain Plasticity:

Functional plasticity: the brain's ability to move functions from a damaged area of the brain to other undamaged areas

Structural plasticity: the brain's ability to actually change its physical structure as a result of learning.

How does Brain Plasticity work?

During the first few years of childhood, the brain growth rate is very high. At the time of birth, every nerve has approximately 2500 synapses (small gaps

between the neurons where nerve impulses are relayed/exchanged. By the age of 3, this number increases significantly to 15000 synapses per nerve!

By the time we grow into adulthood; we have about half the number of synapses. And an obvious question would be why? The simple answer to this is – that as we gain new experiences and learn from them, our brain adapts to them. This process is called synaptic pruning. The balancing activity of used, rarely used and unused neurons keep going on. The ones that are the most used, develop very strong connections; while others that are rarely or never used, die eventually.

Benefits of Brain Plasticity?

Brain or neural plasticity has the following benefits…

It helps in learning newer things
It enhances existing cognitive capabilities
It helps recovery from stroke or traumatic brain injuries
Strengthens brain areas if some functions are lost
Improves memory

How to Improve Brain Plasticity?

Learn newer things
Acquire newer skills
Visit and explore newer places
Create art or artifacts
Have enough sleep
Exercise daily
Take supplements that can increase the formation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) such as Brahmi

References :

1. Herculano-Houzel S. The remarkable, yet not extraordinary, human brain as a scaled-up primate brain and its associated cost. PNAS. 2012;109(Suppl 1);10661-8. doi:10.1073/pnas.1201895109
2. Vemuri P, Lesnick TG, Przybelski SA, et al. Association of lifetime intellectual enrichment with cognitive decline in the older population. JAMA Neurol. 2014 Aug;71(8):1017-24. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2014.963
3. Li W, Ma L, Yang G, Gan WB. REM sleep selectively prunes and maintains new synapses in development and learning. Nat Neurosci. 2017;20(3):427-437. doi:10.1038/nn.4479
4. Tahmasian M, Samea F, Khazaie H, et al. The interrelation of sleep and mental and physical health is anchored in grey-matter neuroanatomy and under genetic control. Communic Biol. 2020;3:171. doi:10.1038/s42003-020-0892-6
5. Kim YS, Shin SK, Hong SB, Kim HJ. The effects of strength exercise on hippocampus volume and functional fitness of older women. Experiment Gerontol. 2017;97:22-8. doi:10.1016/j.exger.2017.07.007
6. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2019.00066/full

Disclaimer :
All images, visuals are used for representation purposes. We do not claim any copyright over these images.

SHOP NOW

DID YOU KNOW WHAT IS BRAIN PLASTICITY?

BRAIN PLASTICITY - AN OVERVIEW