The brains ability to adapt and change its structure and function due to experiences both negative and positive. This is also known as neuroplasticity.

when damage to an area of the brain after trauma has happened to function from the damaged area are transferred to an undamaged area

Compares bilingual brains to non-bilingual brains that were matched controls. Found a larger parietal cortex in the brain of the people who are bilingual

Study the brains of London, taxi drivers. As a part of their training, they had to take the knowledge which assesses the recall of the city Street and possible roots. What is significantly more volume of Greymatter in posterior hippocampus of the taxi drivers compared to match controls. This part of the brain is known for development of spatial and neurological skills in humans and other animals. The more time on the job, the more different the structure was this is a positive correlation

The evidence of plasticity can all be used as support for plasticity.These studies suggest that the brain changes and adapts functionally and structurally as a result of experience, supporting the theory of plasticity., Prolonged drug use has been shown to result in poorer cognitive functioning as well as an increased risk of dementia later in life. Also, 60-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome - the continued experience of sensations in the missing limb as if it were still there. These sensations are usually unpleasant, painful and are thought to be due to cortical reorganisation in the somatosensory cortex that occurs as a result of limb loss. This suggests that neural plasticity continues throughout the lifespan

Schneider et al. (2014) found that patients with the equivalent of a college education are seven times more likely than those who didn't finish high school to be disability-free one year after a moderate to severe brain injury.This suggests that educational attainment may influence how well the brain functionally adapts injury and therefore acts as a moderating factor meaning that we cannot see simple cause and effect

ERP, FMRI, EEG, post-mortem examination

Is a positive and negative voltage functions, drawing and EEG that are locked to a cognitive event. They reflect the brain is activity specifically related to a stimulus

it works through sadistical, averaging techniques all extraneous brain activity of EEGs is filtered out, leading only the responsible response is related to the stimulus

For discriminating patience with Alzheimer’s disease from controls

They are cost-effective, Has good temple resolution (takes the reading in a millisecond so brain activity can be recorded in real time)

It has poor spatial resolution (spatial resolution allows psychologists to discriminate between the brain regions), they only detect activity in superficial regions of the brain they are unable to provide information of what is happening in deeper regions of the brain, so this technology is limited.

they measure changes in the brain activity while a person perform the task. This is done by measuring changes in blood flow in particular areas of the brain using magnetic fields and radio waves.

They are used to be able to characterise brain functions at the level of neural processes. Also doctors can use them before surgery as risk assessment and see what is happening in the head

They captured dynamic brain activity as opposed to post-mortem examination, which purely shows physiological , it is advantageous to investigating brain activity in humans, rather than generalising from animals. This improves the validity and ethical reasons., They produce images that have high spatial resolution, They offer a more objective and reliable measure of psychological processes than is possible with other studies

They are expensive compared to neuroimaging techniques. This reduces the sample size which negatively affects the validity., As it measures changes in blood flow in the brain, it is not a direct measure of neural activity in particular areas of the brain, They have poor temporal resolution because there is about a five second delay of image showed, Critics argued that they overlook the network of nature of the brain activity as it only focuses on localised areas in the brain. They claim communication among different regions, is the most critical way of mental functions.

It involves the analysing of a persons brain following the death. Individuals subjective to them all those who have a rare disorder, unusual mental processes or behaviour. damaged areas within the brain are examined after death to correlate structural abnormalities/damage on behaviour. They may also be compared with Neurotypical brains.