Isn’t that what happens after a stroke? The undamaged parts take over and get wired anew.
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Quite impressive healing and regeneration is normal when there is damage. But a stroke is so random usually with existing co-morbidities that confound the healing process. The variety of clinical presentations in different stroke sufferers would make it very difficult to do a truly representative comparative study. I am guessing that compensating connections are more successful when part of the brain development of an otherwise healthy child as the plasticity is at its height. We still have so much to learn about this remarkable organ.
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Easy because the alcohol has won off and your sober
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It must be fascinating to watch the healing journey in action. It’s as though the bridge between the memories and the recall is burned during some damage. It’s sometimes possible to rebuild that bridge but it can take years. How many years is it since the encephalopathy? You mention it’s chronic - has your daughter had multiple crises?
They say that you don’t see much improvement after initial healing in the first two years, but I don’t believe such pessimistic prognoses. I think we heal for years and if the brain is suitably coached and challenged in a safe environment it can continue to develop connections to eventually override so many deficits. There is a challenge in understanding how to eke out those pathways without overwhelming the healing patient. There has to be a way to bridge that gap, like jump starting a car. I hope we have the facilities and studies in future to find those jump leads.
that might be the case if I wasn’t teetotal these days 
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I informed the DVLA at the same time my new driving licence was due, shortly after the implant LongDriver. I filled in the relevant questions about where I had the ICD fitted and who performed the procedure and they sent me a new driving licence. They did contact the hospital and the Doctor in charge though, I suppose it was to check if I was too old and decrepit to drive.
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I can’t remember what day it is half the time, I think my head is full of too much information … like the words, or some of the words, from 1000’s of old pop songs. Perhaps I need a clear out! Nah, I’m happy with that.
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@AnnieS I find names are a huge trigger. My 1st fiancée was a Carola and to hear that name floods my mind with old memories. BTW, she died way back in 2010.
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Don’t think we have much choice in the retained data 
I was just going to write a very interesting post, but forgot what I was going to say… 
Old age sucks!
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Here’s a couple of observations Annie, although I understand inanimate objects like engines and electronic circuits more than I do with all this psychology stuff…
Which brings me seamlessly into my first observation…
An engineer can strip down an engine or some other mechanical object and remember where all the parts went upon reassembly. A chaser or egghead (from the TV series) seem to have the ability to absorb facts, but I very much doubt that these talents are inter changeable.
So it would appear that memory has all different facets depending how you are wired.
Sticking with the Chasers, I’ve also observed that most people who do very well in the cash builder (answering direct questions) end up getting knocked out when they are faced with three possible answers and common sense and clues in the question are required to sort out the correct suggestion.
I watch the chasers every night and it’s beyond coincidence…
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Your post has demonstrated a very good grasp of psychology. It’s not too different from engineering and electronic circuits.
What fascinates me about our design and the way the brain works is the little glitches, such as the fact that you cannot rotate your right or left hand to the right whilst simultaneously rotating the same side foot to your left. The hand is higher in the brain control hierarchy. Our ability to look at something that has limited information (such as a word with missing letters) and fill in the blanks. We did something called the stroop test where you read a word that says a colour but is coloured in with another colour - that was fun but again makes you fascinated in how we are wired to see colours first, words second.
It’s all about how we are engineered - the most amazing engineering project. The combination of engineering and psychology is the holy grail of science.
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All the psychology in the world won’t stop time 
Isn’t this how salesmen are trained to sell sand to the arabs etc…
Were were on holiday in Great Yarmouth many years ago. Electronic calculators had just been invented and they were hard to find and expensive.
We passed a salesman on the sea front and a small crowd had gathered round him. Mrs Fox and me paused to see what he was selling, bedding bales, pots and pans and other household products, but with each sale he gave away an electronic calculator.
I would buy a calculator…I was too shrewd to come away with anything I didn’t want so I approached the man…
I came away with a set of pans and a bedding bale…and he didn’t give me a calculator…
Let this be lesson to all those who think they can beat a well trained salesperson…
They use these skills in politics and selling dummies like climate change and net zero.
I won’t get fooled again… 
There’s a song in there somewhere…
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I ain’t goin to post it
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Good though innit Spitty…
There is meaning in each and every song, lets let some other folks discover them
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I don’t either. On the forefront of neurology is not just compensating for neuron damage in brain injury but regrowing axions and adjusting neurotransmitter circuitry - especially as it relates to dopamine.
Axons may be recoverable by stimulating the receptor that the turns off after in utero brain development (so growth doesn’t continue infinitely) and balancing dopamine levels that may contribute to a vicious cycle of neuron death after brain injury (trauma, disease, inflammation). Monitoring and balancing dopamine production may not only stop neural degeneration, but buy the brain time to regenerate axon regrowth.
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Dopamine seems to be key so so much in life. I wonder how the internet/social media affects recovery post-brain injury, (given the dopamine roller coaster it generates).
Good [quote=“AnnieS, post:34, topic:107729, full:true”]
Dopamine seems to be key so so much in life. I wonder how the internet/social media affects recovery post-brain injury, (given the dopamine roller coaster it generates).
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Such an interesting consideration! I don’t have any research on this but I can speak anecdotally to it. When my daughter was about forty percent recovered and finally interested in the external world, she started dabbling in the social media apps that were popular with her peers - Facebook and Instagram. I found that after about 4-5 hours after using the apps, she would plunge into either sadness or flatness (no expression, very little interaction). On days she didn’t get on her phone, she was perfectly fine.
It’s a hard right turn, but I absolutely believe that social media, particularly for girls, has the potential of driving girls into depression and not because of jealousy of friends, appearance, or clothes, etc. they might nor have, but because it creates a dopamine roller coaster you mentioned at a time when their hormones are wildly toying with their thinking and feeling.
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