Special Report 2020: Notes from Guest Lecture at the End of the Year: The Miracle Called “Neuroplasticity”

 

Senior Scientist-Research Professor of the University of Florida, USA; Irawan Satriotomo, MD, Ph.D guided participants in the practical session of the Workshop in Neuroscience: "Stroke Research, Spinal Cord Injury and Neurobhavior Assessment" FK UII, in 2018.

YOGYAKARTA (fk.uii.ac.id) - BODY Humans are a gift from God Subhanallah wa Ta'ala which is full of magic in it. One of the wonders of the human body is “neuroplasticity” or neuroplasticity. To find out more about this, Faculty of Medicine Universitas Islam Indonesia (FK UII) return present Senior Scientist/ResearchProfessor Irawan Satriotomo, MD, Ph.D from the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA to share knowledge in front of 300 participants consisting of lecturers, students, and general participant in activities Virtual Guest Lecture (VGL) which takes place on Last November 28, 2020.

ResearchProfessor Irawan Satriotomo, M.D., Ph.D or more familiarly called Prof. Irawan, is a highly skilled neuroscience expert at the University of Florida concern with various research and scientific publications at the international level. At one of the leading universities in Uncle Sam's landut, he is listed as the drafter of the establishment neurobehavioral laboratory and histopathology and molecular biology laboratory, as well as developing various important research topics in the world of neuroscience research, such as: the rodent model of spinal cord injury and stroke research, transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO), permanent distal MCAO (pdMCAO), white matter stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, etc.

Besides that, Prof. Irawan is also CEO and funder from TissuePro Technology, a Biotechnology Company which provides a wide range of reagents used in various biomedical sectors and the pharmaceutical industry. He is also active in the field of scientific publications as well as being etutorial board in various journals, such as: Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sscience (JBBS), Malang Neurology Journal, Current Neurobiology, Journal of Physiology and Pathophysiologyand EC Neurology.

At the VGL this time, Prof. Irawan dissected in detail the topic of neuroplasticity to the audience. According to Prof. Irawan, neuroplasticity or also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through and reorganize, so that neurons can change their function, chemical profile (the amount and type of neurotransmitters produced) or structure.

The changes range pada the individual neurons that make the connections-connection new, up to adjustment-adjustment systematically in the brain. This includes changes in circuits and networks that result from learning new skills, environmental influences, training, physical and psychological stress.

The term neuroplasticity was first introduced by William James (1842-1910), a psychologist and philosopher from the United States, but was first used (scientifically-ed) by Jerzy Konorsky from Poland in 1948 to describe changes observed in the structure of nerves.

There are two types of neuroplasticity, namely:

1. Structural Neuroplasticity

The change lies in the strength of the connections between neurons and/or synapses. Included in structural neuroplasticity, namely:

  1. Synaptic Plasticity

Refers to changes in the strength of the connections between synapses. There are two kinds synaptic plasticity, that is :

    • Short Term Synaptic Plasticity (STSP)

This mechanism causes brief changes in brain circuits. STSP cannot facilitate memory or other forms of plasticity that persist for weeks, months, or years.

    • Long Term Synaptic Plasticity (LTSP)

LTSP includes:

      • Long Term Potentiation (LTP)

A pattern of synaptic activity in the central nervous system that results in a lasting increase in synaptic strength. LTP occurs at excitatory synapses in the hippocampus, cortex, amygdala, and cerebellum.

      • Long Term Depression (LTD)

The opposite of LTP, LTD is a pattern of activity that results in a lasting decrease in synaptic strength. Indeed LTD resembles LTP in many respects, but is characterized by reduced synaptic strength. LTD is also allegedly involved in the learning mechanism that occurs in the cerebellum.

  1. Synaptogenesis

Is the formation of new synapses (at birth each neuron has about 2.500 synapses, by the age of 2-3 years it develops into 15.000 synapses). Synaptogenesis depends on the presence of glial cells, especially astrocytes. Astrocytes also function to supply the cholesterol needed for the process synaptogenesis to keep the levels high.

  1. Neuronal Migration

An important process for the development of the nervous system and involves three distinct phases, namely: eextension of the leading process, movement of the cell body, and retraction of the trailing process.

  1. neurogenesis

Is the proliferation or rapid development of new neurons in brain cells. Stem cells develop into pyramid cells and then into adult cells.

  1. Neural Cell Death (NCD)

It is a form of apoptosis and plays an important role in normal neurodevelopment. Several things underlie the occurrence of NCD, including:

    • Some axons fail to reach their normal targets, and cell death is the way to get rid of them.

    • Cell death could be a way to reduce the size of the neural bundle to something suitable for the target size,

    • Cell death can compensate for a presynaptic input that is too small to accommodate a particular neuron, and

    • As a means of eliminating connection errors between neurons and their specific end organs.

2. Functional Neuroplasticity

Describes permanent changes in synapses due to learning and development processes.

In addition, there are also other theories regarding the type of neuroplasticity. Prof. Irawan explained that in 2000, Jordan Grafman identified four types of neuroplasticity, namely:

a. Homologous Area Adaptation

Occurs during the early critical period of development. if a particular brain component is damaged early in life, the function of that damaged part will shift to a healthy brain area. Example: if there is damage to the right parietal lobe during development, the left parietal lobe will take over the visuospatial function.

b. Map Expansions

There is a need for flexibility in local regions in the cerebral cortex of the brain to be assigned to perform one type of function or to store certain information. This arrangement of local regions is referred to as a “map/map”. This phenomenon usually occurs when a person is learning and practicing his skills, for example: playing a musical instrument.

c. Cross-Modal Reassignments

It is the brain's ability to rearrange and make functional changes to compensate for sensory deficits that occur. Example: the ability of an adult who is blind from birth to have touch and other somatosensory input directed to the visual cortex.

d. Compensatory Masquerade

The human brain has the capacity to determine "alternative strategies" in carrying out a job when the initial strategy/plan cannot be implemented due to various obstacles. Example: when someone tries to map (to move) from one location to another.

At the end of his presentation, Prof. Irawan explained the ten principles of neuroplasticity as quoted from the theory that was presented by Kleim and Jones (2008), namely:

  1. Use it or lose it

Failure to perform certain brain functions can lead to loss of ability. For that we need to maintain the ability of the brain by optimizing its function.

  1. Use it and improve it

Practicing brain function can improve the specific abilities of the brain itself.

  1. Specificity

The nature of the experience gained from brain training will determine the nature of the changes in the brain.

  1. Repetition Matters

Change (plasticity) requires sufficient iteration.

  1. Intensity Matters

Change (plasticity) requires intensive brain training.

  1. Time Matters

Different forms of changes in the brain occur at different times during training.

  1. Salience Matters

The brain training experience must be meaningful to the person in order to cause change (plasticity)

  1. Age Matters

Changes induced by training occur more easily in younger brains.

  1. Transference

Changes in function as a result of one brain training experience may also occur in the learning of other similar skills.

  1. Interference

Brain changes that result in bad habits can interfere with learning good habits.

Currently, the study of neuroplasticity continues to grow rapidly, including in synergy with technological advances so that various sophisticated inventions are born, such as the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) and the Brain Machine Interface (BMI).

BCI is a system that measures the activity of the central nervous system (CNS) and converts it into artificial impulses that restore, augment, enhance, or even replace natural CNS impulses, thus changing the ongoing interaction between the CNS and its external or internal environment. BCI is often geared towards researching, mapping, assisting, augmenting, or improving human cognitive or sensory functions.

Meanwhile, BMI is a system that allows for direct communication pathways between the brain and external devices. BMI application is very useful for clinical or non-clinical purposes. For example, currently many BMI applications have been developed to help patients with disabilities, such as being used to control robotic arms or wheelchairs for people with disabilities. For non-clinical applications, BMI has been used to run various machine tools such as military vehicles, aircraft, and so on.

The presence of Prof. Irawan as a speaker at VGL this time is the third time he has shared his knowledge at FK UII. On the previous occasion, Prof. Irawan once hosted the Workshop: "How to write a manuscript for International Journal: Tips and Tricks" and Creation of an Academic Environment (PLA) with the theme "Update on Neuroscience Research" which was attended by 100 audiences on Wednesday, May 10 2017 in the First Floor Auditorium of FK UII .

In presenting the material at that time, Prof. Irawan explained in detail and clearly about the important points in writing a journal that is highly competitive to the international level, from finding ideas, creating conceptual frameworks, to writing language and content that is good and interesting for an editor. In the PLA session, Prof. Irawan conveyed various recent developments regarding neuroscience research, starting from developments since the early 2000s to the present, including regarding gene therapy which many experts believe can be a solution for the treatment of various central nervous diseases in the future, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, to spinal cord injury.

In addition, he has also been a speaker at the "Workshop in Neuroscience: Stroke Research, Spinal Cord Injury and Neurobehavior Assessment" with a limited number of participants of 30 people from biomedical lecturers, neuroscientists, researchers and clinicians from various cities in Indonesia on the 8th -9 September 2018 at the Integrated Laboratory of FK UII.

In this activity the workshop participants gained various knowledge about how to make experimental animal models of stroke cases with this type of procedure middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and white matter strokes (WMS) in mice. Participants also learned how to take brain specimens using the transcardial perfusion method and introduced the method for assessing brain tissue damage with TTC staining. In addition, participants also had the opportunity to learn to make models of experimental animals with spinal cord damage and learn how to assess the behavior of experimental animals (neurobehavior assessment) by using Morris water maze and Y maze.

Indonesia should be proud to have a nation's son like Prof. Irawan who was able to prove to the international community that we also have capabilities that are not inferior in terms of research and development of science in the field neuroscience. Hopefully what Prof has taught. Irawan became a whiplash for the enthusiasm of the students or students scientist young people to be more active in learning, researching, and continuing to expand their wings in work, as well as being permanent tawadhu and likes to share useful knowledge for others. (etc)