The Brain That Changes Itself

Norman Doidge is a Canadian-born psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has worked at Columbia University and the University of Toronto. The book argues that the adult brain is not fixed hardware: it keeps rewiring itself around what we do, practise and pay attention to. Its central idea is neuroplasticity, and two rules run through it: neurons that fire together wire together, and a brain map that goes unused is taken over by its busier neighbours. Doidge tells the story through scientists such as Paul Bach-y-Rita, Michael Merzenich, Edward Taub and V. S. Ramachandran. He sets their work beside the people they helped, from a woman who lost her sense of balance to stroke survivors who relearned movement and a woman born with only half a brain. He also covers plasticity's dark side, from chronic pain to habits that are hard to undo.

The old picture was a machine: parts fixed in place after childhood, each with one job, wearing out with age. Doidge collects the evidence against it. Lab by lab, the scientists in the book found that the brain's maps move. They grow with practice, shrink with neglect, and can even take over work that another part used to do.

That is hopeful, and it is also a warning. The same machinery that lets a stroke survivor relearn a movement lets a habit dig itself in. Doidge calls this the plastic paradox. So the useful question becomes practical: what am I training my brain to do, every day, whether I mean to or not?