The Brain That Changes Itself

Science has established many laws and established principles that much of the scientific community would like to leave written in stone. The history of neuroscience is a clear example of this.

For Western science, it all began with Galileo, and the love that his theories spread among scientists about the image of the human body as a machine, which moves and acts according to defined and immutable processes. Inside the body machine is the brain machine, which was also believed to be immutable.

Centuries later, came the pioneering research of Paul Broca, who found the first anatomical proof of localization, meaning that each area of the brain corresponds to a specific function. The developments in our knowledge of the brain have been slow. In the past, (when many scientific theories were established), and before the advent of precision surgery, scientific observation was focused on the brains of people who had suffered traumas and injuries, and whose brain function was therefore damaged. Studies were carried out on numerous WW1 victims, leading to the first images of the brain, and to the link between each specific brain part and its particular function, such as the interpretation of visual stimuli, reasoning, writing, and so on.

The brain as a machine and the concept of localizationism are firmly established beliefs among the scientific community. Scientists who suspected otherwise were very often opposed, if not even laughed at. World-wide and even violent protests against animal testing have also thwarted many research projects.

One of the more subtle consequences of insisting the brain is immutable is that it also implies that human beings themselves are incapable of change.