Question on Plasticity and language lateralization

jackthelad321

Hello everyone

Ok this may seem odd but I am writing an essay on plasticity and language reorganization. I am finding it hard to get a definite answer on something that is probably really obvious. Anyway here goes:

Is lateralization of language, especially to the right hemisphere after brain injury (e.g., lesions, or hemisphere removal) plasticity in action? It seems like it has to be for me but I was chatting to a guy who warmed me not to confuse plasticity with lateralization (the context was a shift of langauge functions from the left hemisphere to the right after hemidecortication).

To me this seems wrong. Surely any shift or localizing of brain functioning is as the result of plasticity, and calling it lateralization is merely highlighting the prominence of processing centeralizing in one or the other hemispheres which forms through the brains plasticity, before or after (resulting from brain injury?

Can't seem to find a specific response to this so I said I'd see if anyone who knows a lot about this has an answer for me.

Jack

MonkeyBalls

Depends how you define plasticity. The word is often thrown about in cases of brain injury as if to suggest the brain is one homogenous blob. When a mammal with bilateral symmetry loses a chunk of brain tissue on one of the hemispheres the other hemisphere can take over. A friend of mine, ex-military, had his left frontal lobe removed owing to shrapnel damage, and functions at a high level cognitively.

But in cases where both sides are damaged the person is usually in trouble; the brain can do very little by way of compensation. It's not completely hopeless, it should be said. But most of the miracles of cognitive recovery we see after braindamage are a result of lateralisation. And with language, selective damage to certain areas like broca's and wernicke's can be irreversible, very sad.