Dieses Video wurde für die Teilnahme am Wettbewerb "Fast Forward Science 2022/23" (www.fastforwardscience.de) eingereicht. This video has been submitted to the competition "Fast Forward Science 2022/23" (www.fastforwardscience.de).

A girl is undergoing surgery. The goal is to remove one of her brain hemispheres. How did neuroplasticity help her to rewire her brain? At the same time, dementia (and especially Alzheimer's disease) is on the rise. Can we use neuroplasticity to learn new skills and lower the risk of getting dementia? Let's find out!

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CS is a girl who suffered from a rare disorder called Rasmussen's encephalitis. As she suffered from regular seizures the only viable option was to remove one of her brain hemispheres. Although this is a highly risky surgery, CS did not only survive but her brain could also mostly compensate for its loss. The reason for this is a phenomenon called brain plasticity. Brain plasticity is a process where new connections within existing brain cells are formed. Brain plasticity always happens when we learn new things and the great thing is that brain plasticity can also help to rewire or hack our brains. Studies have shown that neuroplasticity led to larger hippocampuses in taxi drivers and lower amygdalas in people who reduce their stress. If you want to hack your brain (rewire your brain) through brain plasticity you need to learn new things. Learning a second language for example changes brain regions and lead to a better attention span. A healthy diet and exercise can promote brain metabolism and improve brain plasticity. You can also rewire or hack your brain by reducing the amounts of stress. Besides making us smarter, learning new things also helps to reduce the risk of getting mild forms of dementia. Brain plasticity can lead to cognitive reserves here meaning that it takes more damages to the brain until we develop symptoms. Of course, brain plasticity does not exclude the possibility to develop dementia (or Alzheimer's disease) but in can help to alleviate symptoms and lower the risk!

00:00-1:01 Intro
1:01-4:10 How Neuroplasticity Works
4:10-7:38 How to (Naturally) Hack Your Brain
7:38-11:24 How Neuroplasticity Fights Alzheimer’s Disease

References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://translationalneurodegeneratio...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri...
https://www.karger.com/Article/FullTe...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a...
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/...
CS' story:
abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125948&page=1
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/03/the-deepest-cut

Images:
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Vitruvian man by Hans Bernhard (Schnobby), CC BY-SA 3.0
London map by OpenStreetMap, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Senile plaques by User:KGH, CC BY-SA 3.0


Music:
Title: Art of Silence by Uniq   / uniqofficial  
Title: Punch Deck by promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/bkc-ethereal2 (CC BY 3.0)
Title: Black heat by Ross Budgen (CC BY 4.0)
Title: Filaments by Scott Buckley d (CC BY 3.0)
Title: Rudolph by Lukrembro   / lukrembo  
Light Sting by Kevin MacLeod (CC By 4.0)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Title: Buddha by Kontekst
Genre and Mood: Hip Hop & Rap + Bright
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About Clemens Steinek:

CLEMENS STEINEK is a PhD student/youtuber (LifeLabLearner/ Sciencerely) who is currently conducting stem cell research in Germany.