Deafening Affects Vocal Nerve Cells Within Hours

Fascinating.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307132204.htm?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

I wonder if the same thing happens in a truly silent environment -- which is very hard to find. Use it or lose it seems to apply to many things in physiology. Taking a different route home is supposed to help keep your brain working...

Use it or lose it, or the brain just doesn't develop/grow. I remember years ago there was an experiment with rats. One set was placed in a highly enriched environment, basically Disneyland for rats; and another set was placed in a very plain environment. Dissecting their brains later, the rats in the rich environment had brains much larger than the other set of rats. Might not have been larger. I might be recollecting that wrong. Maybe more neuropathways. Something like that.

Cool article, I'm going to share it with my psych prof.

patdbunny wrote:

Use it or lose it, or the brain just doesn't develop/grow. I remember years ago there was an experiment with rats. One set was placed in a highly enriched environment, basically Disneyland for rats; and another set was placed in a very plain environment. Dissecting their brains later, the rats in the rich environment had brains much larger than the other set of rats. Might not have been larger. I might be recollecting that wrong. Maybe more neuropathways. Something like that.

You wouldn't happen to have a link or source to that, would you?

No, I don't have a link. It's something I read about years ago. Google it and hopefully it'll come up somewhere.