The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

by Norman Doidge

With the PoNS, one can divide the intervention into the stages of healing I have proposed. The neurostimulation leads to improved homeostasis, or neuromodulation, which balances the network. The neuromodulation quickly decreases the patients’ supersensitivities and appears to reset the brain stem’s reticular activating system that regulates arousal level, restoring a normal sleep cycle. This leads to neurorelaxation, allowing the circuits to rest and restore their energy. Ongoing neurostimulation, combined with the patients’ restored energy, allows them to turn on dormant circuits by engaging in mental and physical exercise, which is now increasingly possible. Only when homeostasis is corrected, and the brain is modulated,