Habits
Part 1
An Introduction to Neural pathways and Neuroplasticity
05/09/2024
I’ve always had eyes that were sensitive to sunlight. When I was young, I was told it was because I had blue eyes. I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s stuck with me all these years. Regardless, I have difficulty being outside on a sunny day without sunglasses. I’ll even wear sunglasses when it’s raining because it reduces the glare and helps me see better when I’m driving. And while I’m regularly in need of sunglasses, I am also forgetful. I have left more pairs of sunglasses at restaurants than I can count. I have also left my home too many times without my sunglasses. In order to remember my sunglasses, I had to develop a routine that first involved a glasses strap so I could wear them around my neck, and later a habit of always laying my sunglasses on top of my phone or with my keys. Two years ago my youngest son gave me a pair of sunglasses for Father’s Day and thanks to my new habit, I still have them today.
We all have habits. Some help us and some hurt us. Some involve patterns of behavior that can be destructive, such as triggers that can habitually lead an addict to engage in their addiction, and some help us, such as the example I gave above regarding my sunglasses. Both types of habits have one thing in common – they are instinctual responses as opposed to thought out, intentional actions.
There are regions of the brain that involve specific types of processing such as physical sensations, vision, pain, memory and reward. Neural pathways can cover large distances and cross multiple regions of the brain. So, for example, a single pathway could incorporate memory, reward and physical sensations. In fact, the more regions of the brain that are crossed, the more the pathway deals with long-term memory storage as opposed to short-term. That is significant when talking about the formation of habits and we’ll revisit this a little later.
Neural Pathways
So what exactly is a pathway? Think of it as a connection from one point in your brain to another. It is the connection between one thought and another, such as when you are in a conversation and how one comment brings a thought into your head that contributes to or changes the direction of that conversation. It is the connection between a sensation and a memory, such as when you hear a song and recall a fond memory. It is the connection between a thought, sensation and reward, such as when an addict has a powerful desire to engage in their drug of choice.
Pathways can be simple or complex, involving numerous areas of your brain or just a few. The more frequently the pathway is used, the more likely there will be multiple pathways replicating the same connection, similar to a highway versus a one lane country road. That implies that if the connection is strong and incorporates multiple pathways, it can also be weak and involve a single, rarely used pathway. A pathway can grow or shrink to meet the demand. It’s all a matter of use and reinforcement.
Neuralplasticity
The brain has an amazing ability to rewire itself. Not only can it form new neural pathways, but it can change existing connections. This capability is referred to as neuroplasticity. Think of it as a rubber band with the ability to change shapes, twist and stretch itself into multiple shapes to adapt to what it needs to accomplish. Yeah, our brains can do that, but in regards to thoughts and behaviors. So picture your brain as a collection of rubber bands, twisting, stretching and contorting to form your cognitive processes.
If you can picture the brain as a bundle of rubber bands, you can imagine both how pliable it can be as well as how complex. While learning and changing “stretches” us (see what I did there), it’s also not easy. It takes effort and time. We’ll examine the roles of neural pathways and neuroplasticity in the forming and changing of habits in my next blog.