Heal Thyself

Neuroplasticity doesn’t just mean brain change. It captures the unique kind of change – self-directed and self-perpetuating – that is fundamental to how the brain operates and necessary to the brain’s capacity to learn, to remember, and to shift perspectives. It describes how the fibres connecting brain cells to each other sprout, spread, germinate, retract, and vanish, like vines in a jungle or ivy on a garden wall. It is this plant-like character that allows the brain to restructure itself, naturally, from before birth until the moment of death. All of which is influenced by supplies of nutrients and other molecules, blood flow, physical space limitations, and most of all the relentless brunt of the environment – the world – with which the brain is intimately entrained.

This understanding of brain change has infused neuroscience for decades, and in areas that overlap with brain science, such as developmental psychology, it has been around for over a century. But...