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Brain Adapts Quickly to a Broken Arm

By Cari Nierenberg
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD






The study is published in the journal Neurology.

How the Brain Adapts



Researchers observed that even within two weeks’ time, the volunteers were much better at using their left hand than they had been two days after the injury. Regions in the brain's left hemisphere linked with the use of the right hand had decreased in size.

Areas in the brain that improved skills in the left hand had increased in size, giving a person better movement and hand control in the uninjured arm. In other words, the sling or cast was doing its job of resting the limb so it could heal. And the brain had reorganized by forming new connections between brain cells to compensate for these changes.

In fact, the better an injured person could now do a usual task with his left hand, whether it was using a computer mouse or buttoning a shirt, the thicker the areas in the brain's right hemisphere, which control the task, had become.

"The findings highlight the capacity of the human brain to adapt rapidly to changing demands," write the researchers.

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