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Since repetitive mental effort changes the brain, wouldn't the general decline in neuroplasticity itself be reversible if one put time and effort into learning
by blunte 9y ago
Since repetitive mental effort changes the brain, wouldn't the general decline in neuroplasticity itself be reversible if one put time and effort into learning and exercising new and different things?
It seems to me that as we age, we spend less mental energy on processing and analyzing new information and more energy on pattern matching and end-of-pattern refinement. It's an optimization of thinking which allows us to get more done quickly, but it means we strengthen the skills of, well, pattern matching and optimization rather than on gathering and processing broadly.
However, I don't understand how any mental effort can reverse a hardening of a physical material (lens). Maybe it allows us to process visual data based on different rules, such as how the right kinds of image processing can make sense of images that are totally "out of focus".
- walterbell 9y agoThere are various theories about the causes of decreased accomodation in presbyopia, hardening of the lens being one. Other possible factors are axial elongation and ciliary muscles, e.g. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219573-overview#showall https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219573-overview#show... Like many things age-related, you want to be doing vision therapy before there is irreversible damage. Use it or lose it. Since the decrease in accomodation is gradual, vision therapy can be done before reading glasses are strictly needed, at the current accomodation limit. Behavioral optometrists take a holistic view: http://www.mccrodanvision.com/vision-development-education-centre/what-is-developmental-or-behavioural-optometry/ http://www.mccrodanvision.com/vision-development-education-c...