NEUROPLASTICITY

In recent years our understanding of the organization of the cerebral cortex has changed. It is now known that the brain is capable of adaptation to environmental challenges (as in learning) and to functional disabilities produced by lesions. The existence of this process, often described as plasticity, stimulated the development of interventions geared to enhance plasticity when it plays a beneficial role and to inhibit it when it is detrimental. This chapter will review the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive technique used to study and to modulate neuroplasticity in humans.