"As recently as a few decades ago, most biologists thought that the brain was fully formed during childhood and, like a photograph after it's been developed, was doomed to degrade thereafter, with neurons (nerve cells) fading like pigment on paper until you succumbed to senility. Today, we regard Alzheimer's and other dementias as diseases, rather than as a consequence of normal aging. Moreover, we now consider the brain to be as labile as a digital image in the hands of a Photoshop fiend…Not only does the brain have a lifelong ability to create new neurons; like a government with an unlimited highway budget, it has an endless capacity to build new roadways…The ability of the brain to establish new connections is called plasticity, and brain-fitness exercises are predicated on this mechanism…That's enough science for now. Let's get back to me. . . ."
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