If you have been keeping up with the story about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords you will see that, despite severe brain damage due to a gunshot wound, Gabby has been able to make remarkable progress in her recovery. She defied all odds, first by surviving at all, and secondly by being able to get back so much of her previous facilities. Although she has much more work in order to attain a full recovery, and perhaps will never be able to function at the full capacity she once did, her progress is amazing — and an inspiration to all those who have sustained brain damage as well as their families.
Our brains are so amazing! They have the capacity to change directions when they need to, and reroute connections in order to bypass damaged areas. They have the capacity to heal themselves through this redirection, allowing connections to take up the duties the damaged areas can not, at least until they are working again.
The brain connections are a tightly knit unit of intertwined neurons (brain cells). Some of these areas are more tightly wound than others, and they form a a larger series of connections that are called the “rich club” by researchers.
A study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience (Nov. 2, 2011) of work by researchers at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands and Indiana University detailing the influence of the rich club on the human brain. Their research is titled “Rich-Club Organization of the Human Connectome.” From their research they have come to believe that not all regions of the brain are created equal.
“We’ve known for a while that the brain has some regions that are ‘rich’ in the sense of being highly connected to many other parts of the brain,” says professor Olaf Sporns in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in IU’s College of Arts and Sciences. “It now turns out that these regions are not only individually rich, they are forming a ‘rich club.’ They are strongly linked to each other, exchanging information and collaborating.”
The neuroscientists were working together to map the network of connections that comprise the human brain. They were not looking at the brain as specific regions, but more as a highly sophisticated integrated system.
Professor Martijn van den Heuvel, from the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience at University Medical Center Utrecht, worked along with Sporns, Using a form of MRI called “diffusion imaging,” scanned the brains of 21 healthy men and women to create a blueprint of their large-scale network connectivity. What they found was a group of 12 strongly interconnected “bihemispheric hub regions,” making up the precuneus, superior frontal, superior parietal cortex, subcortical hippocampus, putamen and thalamus, which all work together to form the brain’s “rich club.”
They found that the majority of the “rich club” connections work with a wide range of complex behavioral and cognitive tasks. “If the brain network involving the rich club is disrupted or damaged,” said Sporns, “the negative impact would likely be disproportionate because of its central position in the network and the number of connections it contains. On the other hand, if damage were to take place outside of the rich club specific impairments would more likely be affected, but have little affect on the overall flow of information throughout the brain.”
“You sort of wonder what they’re talking about when they’re communicating with each other,” Sporns said. “All these regions are getting all kinds of highly processed information, from virtually all parts of the brain.” He added that what they found in the rich club’s interconnections are “surprising and unexpected.”
“The rich club,” said van den Heuvel, “might be the G8 summit of our brain.” “It’s a group of highly influential regions that keep each other informed and likely collaborate on issues that concern whole brain functioning.” he said. “Figuring out what is discussed at this summit might be an important step in understanding how our brain works.”
Currently the National Institutes of Health is funding a project involving a consortium of more than 70 scientists, including Sporns, who are working together to create a first map of the human connectome. Similar projects are planned or already under way in Europe and Asia.
“People are coming around to the idea that mapping the connectome is not only technically feasible but also very important to do,” Sporns said. “It’s a fundamental step towards understanding the brain as a networked system. Networks are everywhere these days, found in technology, social media and economics, ecology and systems biology — They’re becoming more and more central in many areas of science. The human brain is perhaps the most challenging example to date.”
About the author:
Ron White is a two-time U.S.A. Memory Champion and memory training expert. As a memory keynote speaker he travels the world to speak before large groups or small company seminars, demonstrating his memory skills and teaching others how to improve their memory, and how important a good memory is in all phases of your life. His CDs and memory products are also available online at BrainAthlete.com.
Sources:
Medical Press — Study, A rich club in the human brain: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-rich-club-human-brain.html
