Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind

by Joe Dispenza

Only in the last 30 years or so has research revealed demonstrable proof that the adult brain continues to grow and change, forming new synaptic connections and severing others.

Research has shown that glial cells not only enhance the speed of neurological transmission, but also help to form synaptic connections. This process is critical in learning, changing behaviors, and storing long-term memory.1 For that reason, astrocytes are catching everyone’s attention in neuroscience. Apparently astrocytes, which make up nearly half the brain’s cells, increase the number of functional synapses between neurons throughout the brain and central nervous system.

The “fire together, wire together” principle explains how we can incorporate new knowledge and experiences into our brain. Fundamentally, this is learning. Learning is the new relationship created between neurons, and remembering is keeping that relationship socially alive. It becomes easier for us to remember, or produce the same level of mind from what we learned, because the next time the neural network of synapses fire, it will include the new connection and they will all fire together more strongly and easily. Neural networks develop as a result of continuous neural activation. If Hebb’s theory is true, then we need to have a known (stronger signal) already in place in order to learn something that is unknown (weak signal). We must use existing circuits that represent what is familiar to us—what we have already learned and synaptically wired in place—to learn something that is unfamiliar. Hebbian learning states that it is easiest to make a new connection in the brain by turning on a few existing circuits; once these are activated, we can add a new stitch to the living tapestry of connections. Association is how we accomplish this process. When we learn by association, we draw upon what we have already learned, remembered, and wired in the brain so that we can add a new connection. As we turn on existing circuits, those circuits will be closely related to the new subject we are attempting to learn.

We inherit about 50 percent of our neural networks; the other 50 percent we gain through our own knowledge and experiences.

Hebb’s theory tells us that the number of connections, the patterns of how they are connected, and even how strong the connections are within the neural networks explains how we will express the mind as the individual self in the neocortex.

Our consciousness tends to live in the part of the brain where those familiar circuits hold the reins. People often operate as if they have only one option for behavior. We’ve all heard folks say, “Hey, that’s just me. That’s just who I am.” More correctly, given what we know about the role genetics plays, they should say, “Hey, this is just me choosing to activate the circuits I have inherited from my mother and father.

There are two ways we make new synaptic connections in the brain. The first is to learn new things; the second way is to have new experiences.

if we seldom learn new things and have hardly any novel experiences throughout our lifetime, the fewer the synaptic connections we will make. For the most part, our conscious awareness will be limited to using those initial neural networks from our genetic lineage with which to produce the mind. According to Hebb’s model, when we fire the same genetically inherited circuits over and over again, then we wire ourselves to live out only our predetermined genetic destiny. Put another way, if we repeat the same familiar, predictable, routine, and automatic actions, thoughts, habits, and behaviors, our brain will remain at status quo. And if we accept the “fire together, wire together” theorem, then it will only make sense that those connections will become more hardwired by the repeated activation of the same neural nets. We will not evolve our brain to any large degree.

The way out, in order to escape our genetic propensities, is to continually learn new information and have new experiences. This is how we upgrade our brain.

The mere process of learning a new idea and storing that fact as a memory in the brain leaves a mark of that thought in our living neurological tissue.

In the early 1970s, psychologist Endel Tulving called storing knowledge in the brain in this manner semantic memory.4 Semantic memories pertain to information that we come to know intellectually but have not experienced. In other words, we may understand new information as a concept but have not yet experienced it with our senses.

Semantic memories are just facts recorded in the brain, information stored as intellectual or philosophical data. The knowledge exists as a possibility, not a reality.

Semantics are just facts that we can recall or remember.

We can’t experience a phone number, so the act of memorizing that number resides almost entirely in the domain of semantic memory.

It is hard for many of us to retain semantic memories for a long time; that is why this type of memory gets labeled short-term memory. We don’t experience this information fully.

The key ingredient in making these neural connections from semantic data, and in remembering that data, is focused attention.

Through paying attention, or employing focused concentration, we create longer-lasting memories. In so doing, we make learning more effective.

In addition to learning, the second way we make synaptic circuits in the neocortex is through our experiences. Experience enriches the brain and, for that reason, it makes the strongest, most long-lasting synaptic connections.

University of Toronto psychologist Endel Tulving has called this type of learning episodic memory because this mode of memory is all about our personal experiences. Events we experience that are associated with people and things at specific places and times, he claimed, are more likely to be stored as long-term memories. He reasoned that unlike facts or intellectual information, episodic memories involve the body and the senses as well as the mind. They require our full participation.

Through our five senses, we record all the incoming data from our diverse experiences in the brain’s synaptic wiring.

we can remember experiences better because we can remember how they felt.

Feelings are what allow us to record our sensory experiences through our neural circuitry and brain chemistry. When we remember an experience, we feel the exact same way we did at the time of the event. When we either consciously or unconsciously activate the associated neural networks of any experience (memory), the circuits we fire create the same, corresponding chemicals in the brain. These chemicals then signal the body. As a result, when we recreate a memory, we reproduce the same feeling in the body connected to the initial event.

Episodic memories are remembered as feelings, and feelings are always related to experiences.

A nerve cell with dendrite spines. The thorn-like projections serve as receivers for various synaptic connections. The total number of dendrite spines tends to increase when a living organism is exposed to an enriched environment. Because enriched environments offer more novel and diversified experiences, it is postulated that new experiences create more synaptic connections and, therefore, more intricate and enriched connectivity in gray matter.

Knowledge without experience is philosophy, and experience without any knowledge is ignorance. The interplay between the two produces wisdom.

Intellect is knowledge learned, and wisdom is knowledge experienced. When a sensory experience is connected to an episodic memory, we can at last understand the concept of wisdom. Wisdom is having an experience that we understand in its full meaning, because we had the experience and learned from the novelty of that experience.

The way in which we learn and memorize information joins neurons together to form stronger connections by the Law of Association. Hebb’s theory helps explain how associative learning takes place. When weak inputs (new information we are attempting to learn) and strong inputs (familiar, known information already wired in the brain as a neural net) are fired at the same time, the weaker connection will be strengthened by the firing of the stronger connection.

An entire concept that is unfamiliar to us can be easily integrated into our preexisting neural nets when we use the Law of Association.

If we learn by association, we remember by repetition.

Attention is crucial to this process. As long as we pay attention to whatever we are learning, and then repeat over and over whatever thought we are enacting, the neocortex can begin to pattern new connections in new networks, so that we can have a lasting map that is accessible in the future. If, however, we move our mind to something else in the moment we are attempting to develop new connections, the brain cannot begin to map and pattern our efforts, because the mind has left the scene and gone to a different neural pattern.

There is also an asymmetry in the biochemistry of the hemispheres. For example, the left hemisphere has an abundance of the neurotransmitter dopamine, while the right hemisphere has more of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. The right hemisphere also has more receptors for the neurohormones for estrogen.

Goldberg observed that as children, we are exposed to enormous amounts of novel information, whereas as adults, we operate much of the time by performing routine tasks and using information that has long been familiar to us.

In fact, numerous studies have demonstrated that humans learn through dual-brain processing.11 In experiments that put subjects in novel situations requiring complex problem solving, increased brain activity was seen to begin in the right frontal lobe. As participants learned the solutions to problems, their left frontal lobe displayed heightened neurological activity. It seems that the transformation of novel information from the right hemisphere to routine information in the left hemisphere takes place regardless of the nature of the type of information being learned. The neurological circuits located in the R.H. are especially skilled at learning a new task quickly, while the synaptic networks in the L.H. are more skilled at perfecting a task—given sufficient motivation and diligent practice.

1. By learning new information (semantic memories) and having new experiences (episodic memories), we make new synaptic connections and evolve our brain’s hardware. 2. We learn by association. We use what we already know to understand the unknowns we encounter. When we fire neurological networks that are already developed from our knowledge and experience, that part of the brain is now receptive to making new synaptic connections for even greater understanding. This is Hebb’s “fire together, wire together” model of learning. 3. We remember by repetition. When we put our full attention on what we are learning and practice it repeatedly, firing these synaptic connections time and time again, neurotrophic chemicals are released that cause the synapses between neurons to form long-term relationships. “Neurons that repeatedly fire together, wire together more strongly.” 4. We have hardware in our brain that enables us to learn—to make the unknown, known—on both the Hebbian level of neurons (microscopic) and on the level of dual-brain (macroscopic) processing.

This “fire together, wire together” principle is called Hebbian learning, and the chemical change in the nerve cells and synapses is called long-term potentiation (LTP).1 Long-term potentiation means that nerve cells at the synaptic level develop a long-term relationship. Long-term potentiation is how the brain’s neural nets tend to become more “glued together” and hardwired.

Because our memories of past events are always linked with emotions (emotions are the end product of experience) and are primarily tied to events related to people and things at specific times and places, our episodic memories are filled with the feelings of past associations of known external experiences. We tend to analyze all experiences based on how they feel.

Neurons are greedy little creatures who want and need neural growth factor. They can get it only when enough nerve cells fire together, thus producing a large enough burst of current at the end of the presynaptic terminal, forcing nerve cells to wire together. Gangs of neurons firing together will suck up the neural growth factor in order to gain new synaptic recruits. They will even steal it from nerve cells that are not firing. It’s almost as if once they get a taste for it, they have an insatiable desire for it. Another name for neural growth factor molecules is neurotrophins. These miracle chemicals actually help neurons grow new synaptic connections and survive. Neurotrophins are like a fertilizer that causes one neuron tree receiving a signal from another neuron tree to release a strong potion that will cause new branches to form from the sending nerve tree, in order to make new and more sophisticated connections between them.

Neurotrophic chemicals allow lonely neurons to join a lively party.

The Formation of Neural Networks Did you ever notice that when you’ve had something happen out of the ordinary—whether it is a car accident, meeting a new person whom you found attractive, or having a mystical experience—you can’t stop thinking about that event? In a sense you are preoccupied; it’s almost as if those memories from the past (good or bad) have invaded and taken up residence in your brain. The reason you focus on those inputs is simple. To make that memory stick, you had to repeatedly think about it and solidify that experience into a long-term memory—that is the process of learning. Each time the thoughts were repeatedly fired in your brain, you were hardwiring those particular circuits into a more enduring memory. By repeatedly thinking about that experience, you were associating it with other memories—both of experiences and of knowledge you previously acquired. This process seems natural to us, because in evolution, it is essential for all species to remember in order to modify any prior behavior.

When we frequently fire thoughts from our past knowledge base or past experiences, the Law of Repetition says that the continuous firing of these thought patterns in the brain will actually create our everyday thoughts. These are the thoughts that we think most often, and are, therefore, more deeply etched in the brain’s neural networks. These thoughts appear as the voices we hear in our own mind that tell us what to say, think, act, feel, emote, or respond with. But they’re all based in our memories in the form of neural networks encoded with the past. Everyday thoughts take no effort to think about. We are producing the same mind on a daily basis, because we are firing the same neural networks in the same patterns, combinations, and sequences. As we process thought in the brain and repeat it over and over by firing repetitive inputs, the nerve tracts that are turned on will, just like muscles, develop and strengthen their connections.

if we continually remember a thought from our past associations, we will ultimately strengthen the synaptic connections related to that thought process. As a result, the same thought fired in the brain daily will cause that same thought (or thoughts) to fire more.

Our routine thoughts are our most hardwired thoughts because we practice and attend to them so well.

Our personality is a set of memories, behaviors, values, beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes that we either project into the world or hide from the world.

Our freedom of choice determines what mind we want to make or change from the hardware of our own individual brain.

When you meet someone for the first time, you begin by displaying all the different neural networks from your past personal experiences to define your own personality. You both will mutually fire all your neural programs to check out whether you have any neural nets in common. The person you meet sounds like this: “I know these people. I own these things. I’ve been to these places. I lived here during this time. I have had these experiences.”

To think inside the box is to cause our mind to fire in the most regular way in which we fire our own pattern of neural circuits, based on what we know and remember. To think outside the box, then, is to force our brain to fire synaptic patterns in different orders and arrangements to make a new level of mind, based on what we do not know. To accomplish this feat, we have to break the neural habits of common thinking that have become the permanent, long-lasting circuits we have reinforced daily. We have to stop our most natural way of thinking. This will repattern our brain out of its neurological habit of firing, and make a new sequence of circuitry and new footprints. This is, by definition, our working understanding of neuroplasticity.

We act unconsciously most of the time because after neural networks become hardwired, we become less conscious of their activity.

We are producing the same mind on a daily basis because we are firing the same neural networks in the same routine patterns, combinations, and sequences. That’s why it is so easy to be the way that we are. Behaving habitually takes no effort at all—no conscious awareness means no free will need be exerted.

To think outside the box, then, is to force our brain to fire synaptic patterns in different orders and arrangements than usual. The box of our personal identity has become natural to us, because we have trained our brain to think the way in which it has been neurologically mapped.

what we commonly refer to as the fight-or-flight response—have been fired for hundreds of thousands of years.