Hoarding and Hebb’s Law- Part 1

Neuroplasticity is an amazing but rather odd phenomenon. Simply put, it is the process by which our brains are “plastic” in that they change in response to a particular experience. Often this process of change and re-wiring happens so that we can complete tasks better.

 

There are a few different reasons that our brains may change:

• Learning a particular skill such as a musical instrument — our brain strengthens the connections responsible for the complex hand movements.
• Neuroplasticity has a huge role when there is damage or injury in the brain. Where connections may be lost the brain will create new pathways to replace the ones that have been disrupted.
• Our brains will also change in response to specific ways of thinking, making these thought processes come about more readily.

 

Thankfully, while there is some pretty complicated biology and chemistry behind this, the overall principle can be understood in one sentence:

Neurones that fire together, wire together.

Physically, this is done through a few mechanisms, but the main one is that the number of chemical signals (neurotransmitters) increase the more times that a particular pathway is used. Another mechanism, and perhaps my favourite, is that neurones reach out their “arms” (technically called dendrites!) to other neurones that they fire with regularly.

This is why we form particular habits that we do without thinking. Maybe it is that when you change the password on your computer your fingers keep typing the old one, without really thinking. That old neurone pathway is so well-entrenched that it happens almost sub-consciously.

Without being able to grow, strengthen, and create new connections in response to our environment, our behaviour would be much less efficient!

In the next blog we will have a think about how all this can underpin how hoarding behaviour can come about, but also how we can use it to our advantage when supporting ourselves or others!