Many of us may already be struggling with our New Year’s resolutions, but at least we can take comfort in modern neuroscience. Forty years ago, we’d have been less hopeful.
Back then neuroscience would say that the brain was fixed after early childhood. One famous experiment in the 1960s showed that if kittens were placed in a visually deprived environment in the days and weeks after birth, their sight as older cats would be impaired.
Similar experiences later in life did not have this effect, which fitted with the idea that what happens in early childhood changes our brains fundamentally, but they’re fixed after that point.
However, since then, more evidence has been found for the growth of new nerve cells in adult brains. Knowing this may help us to break bad habits and make new ones. So neuroscience has caught up with common sense and accepts the idea that new brain circuits can form as a result of experience. And if you take one thing away from this column, it’s because something in the structure of your brain has changed.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of the Science Gallery at King’s College London