On 8/5/2011 9:37 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> The utter flexibility of the human brain frustrates any attempt to
> attach a particular behavior to a particular evolved trait.
Here's a wonderful example of brain plasticity. When infants or toddlers suffer massive trauma in one cerebral hemisphere, the brain will typically "reroute" the interneural connections in the surviving motor cortex so that the child will recover motor control of both the left and right sides of the body. Even with something as basic as motor function, there is not a specific area of the left or right motor cortex that is rigidly "hardwired" to control a specific part of the body.
Miles
^^^^^ CB: Carrol refers to "human brain" . Is the human brain more plastic than the brain of other species ? Whenever, referring to the human brain , there is an implied comparison with the brains of other species. Don't monkey infants who suffer massive trauma have similar abilities to recover ? How about dogs ? Elephants. ? Don't all these species have flexible connections between one side of the brain controlling a specific part of the body ? Surely brain plasticity is not a unique human species characteristic. That's probably mammalian or even further back.
I'd suspect a unique capacity of the human brain is to handle language. It is hardwired for that. It is also hardwired uniquely to tend to walk on two legs with maturation. Of course, it is plastic enough to ride in wheel chair if necessary.