A cool film about Brain Connections

You can find it here!

The Language of Movement: Tools and Solutions ~ by Anat Baniel

Anat Baniel Method for Vitality and Anti-aging
(Re-Printed from Anat Baniel's website at www.anatbanielmethod.com)

A “thinking person’s approach to movement” that involves the whole self is the foundation of the Anat Baniel Method(sm) to vitality and anti-aging, to enhanced fitness, and to the learning of a new vocabulary of movement.

Students improve motion with techniques that provide both knowledge of the physical effects of exercise on the body, and the understanding of the importance of each individual’s thoughts, emotions and perceptions for successful outcomes from working out. These techniques re-train the brain to send more effective, “mindful,” better organized commands of movement to the muscles, allowing students to achieve higher performance levels, reduced stress levels, and progress towards greater health, vitality, and well-being.

The Anat Baniel Method maintains that conventional workouts are often harmful, not only to the joints and muscles, but to the self-esteem of those who experience failure because they are unable to perform the routines successfully. People frequently drop out of exercise classes, like Aerobics, Yoga, stretching, or quit a sport or other physical activity, like running, golfing, tennis, because of injury or because they feel clumsy, stiff and uncoordinated.

By simply breaking the movements down into their smaller, underlying parts and using those movements to communicate with the brain so that it can reorganize the muscles to perform the exercise successfully, all of this can be avoided. The focus of exercise should not be trying to accomplish a specific “correct” outcome from the start, nor to mimic the instructor trying to do what you cannot, but rather engage in a process that will lead you to successfully learn the necessary underlying skills and hence reach successful performance.

In order for any exercise and fitness program to be most successful, it has to be approached as a process that is built to fit the unique needs of each individual. Each person exercising should have a great degree of control over their process, because only the person exercising FEELS their own body and can effectively respond to its needs.

Here are some tips that will help you be the master of your own process and will greatly increase your success with whatever form of exercise, or fitness activity you choose:

1.    Don’t Force It. Perform new movements slowly and gently so that you can feel what you are doing and give your brain the opportunity to differentiate and form new, more effective patterns of movement.

2.    Recognize your own comfort level and exercise within that zone. Build up to extra effort gradually without forcing. Once you know the mechanics of the movement, you can very quickly make it more powerful and faster.

2. Listen to Your Body. Exercise is not an isolated activity for just one part of your body. Be in touch with the way your entire body feels and its relationship to the floor and your surroundings. Pay attention to your pelvis, your lower back, your breathing, your neck, your eyes, your head, the length of your spine, the expression of your face and more. Rest between movements.

3. Use your intelligence. Think through the movements as you exercise. The body and brain are one, in constant communication. When you concentrate on what you are doing and feeling, the brain receives new information, which it uses to help improve the commands to the muscles and manage your movements more efficiently. The brain thrives on variety and when it is reprogrammed with an expanded movement repertoire, it replaces repetitive, boring, compulsive exercises that wear out our joints, and often lead to injury with a successful new relationship with our bodies.

4. Be Your Own Person. Exercise at your own pace, even if it means have a different pace than the rest of the class. Watch the teacher and understand the instruction and than pay attention only to yourself, to how you feel, what is the range, speed and intensity that is right for you. Modify the movement to fit your own sense of comfort, safety and ease.

5. Don’t be concerned with the final outcome. Pay attention to the process. A high quality process will always lead to effective learning and change and often times will lead to changes that are better and greater than we knew to ask for.

6. Take pleasure and pride in “small” changes. It is continuous seemingly small changes that lead to transformational outcomes.

7. Age Is A State of Mind. When it comes to fitness and exercise, you are truly as old as you choose to believe. There is nothing static about movement of our body, of our minds, of our feelings and of our emotions. When we cast aside old, automatic ways of moving, thinking, and feeling, and integrate new movement options into your life, regardless of age, we can tone our body, take up new sports and improve overall in ways we never though possible.

Anat Baniel Method, 4330 Redwood Hwy. Suite 350, San Rafael, CA 94903 415-472-6622; 800-386-1441 www.anatbanielmethod.com

Anat Baniel on Children with Autism

This article is from the Huffington Post and is written by Anat Baniel.

3 Breakthrough Steps for Helping Your Child on the Autism Spectrum

Posted: 04/13/2012 6:50 pm

Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the alarming statistic that one child out of 88 is diagnosed as having an autism spectrum disorder, a huge increase over the past 10 years. Are these children doomed? Absolutely not. A variety of behavioral therapies and other interventions can help the child on the Autism spectrum make great strides. My message to you is that there is hope for even greater outcomes for these children than we have come to expect. New scientific research has created breakthrough possibilities of helping the child on the Autism spectrum by reducing the brain's compulsivity and helping it become the brilliant brain it is built to be.
For that we need to stop trying to "fix" the child and start creating conditions that help the child's own brain to do its job better.
The brain of every child needs to do two somewhat opposing things. The first is to constantly seek new ways of doing things through the creation of new neural connections and patterns. The second is to groove in and turn into habits the effective new patterns, be it in movement, thinking, feeling or emotion. This is what is happening in the brain anytime a child learns something new, such as walking; what was at first impossible or difficult becomes "second nature" as the child's brain refines the patterns to perform that activity well. Typically, the brain of the child on the Autism Spectrum tends to create a limited number of very powerful habits and to have great difficulty with the complementary, open-ended process of creating new patterns and new possibilities, resulting in the rigidity we often see with children suffering from this condition.
The following helps to illustrate how we can help the child with Autism transcend his or her current limitations.
I first saw Jonathan when he just turned two. He recently was diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum. In addition to making no eye contact, he was not speaking nor did he respond to his name. He had difficulty eating and refused most foods, and when people were around he tried to hide under furniture. During his first session with me, while sitting in his father's lap, he repeatedly arched his back, threw his head back and let out a cry as if his brain was stuck on an automatic loop unable to do anything else. I saw in Ryan a brain that was having great difficulty making sense of all the input and stimulation coming in.
I began very gently and slowly to move Jonathan's pelvis and back. In the beginning, he didn't seem to notice himself or me. A few minutes later, as I very gently and slowly moved his foot, Jonathan became suddenly very still and began staring at his own foot, then straight at me, then back at his foot as if he was feeling it and seeing it for the very first time in his life! Jonathan was coming home to himself. As "small" a change as this might seem, it was a moment of transformation for Jonathan, changing the way his brain had been working. After this first session Ryan's parents reported significant changes in his behavior. After two weeks of sessions he was eating much better, beginning to talk, interacting and playing with his brother and eventually with other kids.
What happened and how does this apply to you and your child?
Every child's brain is like an information "Cookie Monster" -- the brain needs lots of new information to grow and develop new skills. The source of new information to the brain is through the perception of differences. Until a child feels and notices a change or a difference in what they feel, hear, see, smell, or taste, their brain has nothing to work with. Before this differentiation takes place, it's all a blur, like background noise, no matter how clear it might seem to be to us. We can drill the child for hours with some, or little outcome. But when we help their brain get better at noticing differences, almost anything we do with the child will help them improve and almost always at a staggering rate.
Here are three ways you can help your child's brain get better at perceiving differences and getting the new information it needs to heal and learn:

1. Movement With Attention: Take a few minutes, 3-4 times a day, and guide your child to pay attention to what they feel as they move. As they are doing this, observe the immediate and remarkable changes beginning to happen in your child. Automatic, repetitive movement provides little new information for the brain. When your child is attentive to what they feel as they move -- their brain begins forming new neural connections at a staggeringly rapid rate -- that is when transformation happens.
2. Slow: Whenever you observe that your child has a difficulty or seems to "not get it", slow him or her and yourself way down. This change alone can bring about remarkable transformations. Fast, the brain can only do what it already knows. Slow gets the brain's attention and provides the time for the child to feel themselves and for the brain, once again, to notice differences and get new information to work with.
3. Variation: That means instead of trying to have your child do things the "right way", become playful. Guide your child to make lots of mistakes - to do the same thing in many different ways. That provides the brain with lots of opportunity to perceive differences and get the information it needs.

In Her Own Words: Anat Baniel talking about the Anat Baniel Method

A great interview with Anat Baniel here.

KIds Beyond Limits-review 3

Review from a Mom in Portland, OR who writes a blog about her life as mother of identical twins, one with cerebral palsy. 

 

REVIEW: Kids Beyond Limits by Anat Baniel

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Note: The following review assumes you've heard of the Anat Baniel Method (ABM). It is the primary methodology we use with Malachi and we've found it to be very compelling, though we are not without criticisms. If you follow the linked text above, you can read everything I've written on the subject.

So, I had very much hoped that I would have finished reading Anat Baniel's new book Kids Beyond Limits: The Anat Baniel Method for Awakening the Brain and Transforming the Life of Your Child With Special Needs by today, its release date, but I have to admit that I haven't. I've read most of it and skimmed through the rest.

I received an advance copy to review about a month ago and the bottom line is that I absolutely love it. But even though the book is short, only 288 pages, it has taken me an incredibly long time to read it. That's because it's just packed with things that, well, kinda blow my mind. I've found I have to put the book down at least every chapter to think about how I can integrate its philosophy into my life and the way I deal with Malachi. And I definitely can't read it before bed or I will be up all night thinking about it.

So it's been slow going. But I know for a fact I will read it through again as soon as I finish. And I will make everyone who interacts with Malachi read it. And, if I can, all of you people read it.

If you happen to have read Anat Baniel's first book, Move into Life: The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality, you already know her so-called Nine Essentials: Movement with Attention, The Learning Switch, Subtlety, Variation, Slow, Enthusiasm, Flexible Goals, Imagination and Awareness. These are also the basis of her new book, but I found Kids Beyond Limits to have much more practical advice, useful anecdotes and personal insights. It also seems to reference many more scientific studies than I recall from Move Into Life, and has extensive footnotes. For anyone who enjoyed Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, I would consider this a practical guide to that inspiring round-up of neuroplasticity success stories.

What I really loved was that Baniel describes in detail what is going through her mind as she treats kids with special needs and it helped me realize that more than anything the Anat Baniel Method is about how you treat kids with special needs rather than what particular movements you do. Therefore, I really consider this a book that anyone and everyone who interacts with special needs kids should read.

For others, the titles of the Nine Essentials alone might be enough to help them remember what to do in their daily interactions with kids. But for me, I've found more success with pulling out some key phrases that I repeat to myself as I interact with Malachi. Here are a few:


What is obvious to me is not obvious to him. Parents know instinctually that this is true in certain cases. For example, just about everyone would know to keep a newly crawling baby away from ledges. Even though the consequences of gravity are obvious to everyone else, the baby has not yet learned this. Baniel takes this concept a step further and shows how kids — all kids, but particularly those with special needs — are not aware of things that we consider to be obvious and this is the source of much of their dysfunction. For my son, this means that even though he arches his back all the time, he might not actually be aware that that is what he is doing and that it prevents him from accomplishing things like rolling over. So, I've started to play a game with him called "arch, flat, curl" where I playfully point out what he's doing and even accentuate it a little bit with my hands. This has very quickly taught him the difference between these states and he can now curl over to lay on his side pretty much whenever he wants to.

How can I "differentiate around the edges"? Baniel uses the phrase "differentiate around the edges" a lot and by it she means that you start with something the child can already do well and then see how you can build on that — slowly and incrementally. I'm finding this to be easiest to apply in my verbalizations. I have always babbled along with Malachi and Jaden, but now I can add in a slightly different vowel sound or play with my tongue a little more and see if they follow along. Very often, they do, and Malachi has even begun to push his tongue out the left side of his mouth, which he has never done before.

Sloooooow. OK, so this is just the title of one of the Nine Essentials, but it's very useful and easy if you can remember to do it. Just slow down. I take a few beats longer to turn the page, or wait a little longer after pointing to an object they know the word for or take 10 seconds to pick him up from the floor instead of five. What's the rush?

Require less evidence to be happy for his growth. Yes, I did just see Malachi's leg move in a way I haven't before. It's OK to be happy about that. I don't need to have him repeat it immediately to prove it to me and I don't need to keep those happy feelings in a penalty box in my head just in case he never makes that movement again. Neither do I need to wait to be happy until I see him incorporate that leg movement into rolling over. I saw him do it with my own two eyes and he's never done it before. That's enough.

Concentrate more on the process and less on the outcome. This one is really hard for me. Like, really, really, really hard. I'm constantly fighting back voices that say: "If there are no outcomes, what's the point?" But I feel like there is something very valuable there so I'm going to keep working at it. As Anat herself says, if she were required to directly "make" a child perform a certain way, she would have no idea how to do it. She just concentrates on improving their quality of movement and the rest takes care of itself.

Wonder what he'll do next. This one has been great and I've been really surprised and delighted at the results. Whenever I catch myself about to "help" him, I still my mind for a second and wonder, with rapt attention, what he'll do next. More often than not he does something useful or unexpected. For example, today, he was trying to roll onto his side to get a small toy car. He was straining and tensing his legs so much that he would never get fully onto his side. Normally, I would pick up his top leg and push it over towards where he wanted to go. This time I just watched for a second. Then, very gently, I poked his hip and wondered what would happen. Almost immediately, he brought both of his legs up and curled his body to get much closer to the toy car. I didn't even realize for a second or two that that was my desired outcome because I was so intent on simply observing. And the best part was that it came from him which — obviously, but it wasn't really obvious to me before! — is where all of his movements are ever going to come from.

Kids Beyond Limits Review 2

From Amazon.com by one of Amazon's Top Reviewers

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Patience and Rewards, April 30, 2012

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) 

 

This review is from: Kids Beyond Limits: The Anat Baniel Method for Awakening the Brain and Transforming the Life of Your Child With Special Needs (Paperback)

In what is one of the most erudite, sensitive, and genteel books published about children with limits Anat Baniel quietly discusses her phenomenal success dealing with children once thought to be impossible medical problems. This book is not only for parents of children with special needs, this is a book that should enjoy a wide readership as the world is gradually becoming aware of the possibilities that lie within the brain. Using the tutelage she received from her mentor Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Anat Baniel seems to have happened upon her Method intuitively - the mere holding of a child who seemed to lack all possibilities of the brain connecting to the rest of the body, a screaming child whose parents were desperate for relief, and finding that through touch and concentration the child not only calmed but became able to connect synapses to enter the world into which she was born. `Through the years that I have worked with Elizabeth we always made a point of identifying and building upon PRESENT ABILITIES rather than focusing on her disabilities, transforming the abilities we had identified into greater abilities, again and again.'

Thus began the Anat Baniel Method - a technique that utilizes simple gentle movements and focus - a technique that requires profound hours of patience on the part of the giver as well as the recipient, and the recipient may have autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy or other developmental disorders.

The first three chapters of this book serve as an introduction to the science of brain function and the alterations that are manifest in the disorders mentioned above. After urging the reader to digest the information and alter the mindset as set forth in these chapters, then Baniel presents the Nine Essentials that define her method - Movement with Attention, Slow, Variation, Subtlety, Enthusiasm, Flexible Goals, The Learning Switch, Imagination and Dreams, and Awareness. The heading for each of these `nine essentials' does not begin to imply the significance of change that they bring. Following these essentials acknowledges `the ability of the brain to change itself in ways that defy our normal expectations and the perceived limitations in the child,' or in other words, neuroplasticity.

Dignity is a word that comes to mind as we read Anat Baniel's fine book - dignity and respect for children (and adults) in patiently accompanying the `limited' child to awaken the brain to form new patterns, patterns that then allow the child to function in a manner that creates happiness rather than fear, mistrust, confusion, and frustration. This is a little miracle of a book, highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 12

Book Review 1 - Kids Beyond Limits

This review is taken from a website called SpecialNeeds.com. 

It was written byCara Batema

Book Review: Kids Beyond Limits

Parents of special needs children know about everyday struggles, and oftentimes feelings of hopelessness cannot be avoided.  Anat Baniel’s new book Kids Beyond Limits offers a method supported by brain research with a healthy side dose of empathy and hope.
The Anat Baniel Method offers nine essentials and innovative movement activities to help children with disabilities ranging from the Autism spectrum, ADHD, cerebral palsy, and other developmental disabilities.  The book offers hands-on instruction, so parents and caregivers may achieve results.
The method is centered around brain research and how changes in the brain enables positive results, as the brain begins to heal itself.  Parents of special needs children want techniques that work, and Baniel shows in her book how her method can be the tools for miracles.
The nine steps of Baniel’s method produce challenges for children with special needs and how parents can incorporate these in everyday activities.  These nine steps are outlined:

• Movement with Attention:  Bringing attention to purposeful movements allows the brain to make new connections and creates the opportunity for understanding and growth
• Slow:  Starting with “baby steps” is the best way to achieve success and increase opportunities
• Variation:  Creating new experiences gives the brain new information and facilitates new pathways for connections and growth
• Subtlety:  Empower your child with sensitivity and patience
• Enthusiasm:  Recognizing victories and praising accomplishments gives drive and excitement to your child
• Flexible Goals:  Set attainable goals based on your child’s needs, and smaller goals lead to larger goals down the road.
• The Learning Switch:  Switch the disengaged child to an open and stimulated child
• Imagination & Dreams:  Imagination is inspiring, and dream big for a fulfilling and bright future
• Awareness:  Increase your child’s awareness and understanding of themselves and their world, and let the world be a place of discovery

The method encourages a focus on connection rather than “fixing,” which allows parents to de-stress and maximize their child’s potential for growth and development.  These techniques can be applied to children with a wide range of abilities and diagnoses.
The Anat Baniel Method is science-based, so critics of new therapies will be pleased that there is evidence to back up the techniques.  The method works on cognitive, physical, emotional, and creative well-being, and it is a tool that can be adapted to your child’s needs.

Written by: Cara Batema See other articles by Cara Batema
About the Author: Cara Batema is the editor of SpecialNeeds.com.  She has a background in writing and music therapy, and she has worked in individual and group settings with individuals with special needs.

Anat's latest Huffington Post article

Periodically Anat Baniel writes for the Huffington Post. Here is her latest offering. It is well written and an exciting preview of what we will hear in her new Book being released later this month!

The ABM and Contemporary Neuroscience

An article written by my fellow ABM practitioner Neil Sharp. He speaks about the Method with remarkable clarity.

The Anat Baniel Method and Contemporary Neuroscience

By Neil Sharp M.D.

(M.A.hons University of Cambridge, M.B., Ch.B. University of Edinburgh Medical School, Alumnus of the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester)

Physician, Opera singer, Anat Baniel Method Practitioner and Anat Baniel Method for Children Practitioner.

I have worked both as a physician and as a professional opera singer and it was through the latter that I first came to experience the work of Anat Baniel. Experience, here, is a crucial word. Nothing in my medical training had prepared me for the powerful effects of this extraordinary work but, although I had no clue as to its mechanism at the time, it was clear that it was mediated through the nervous system and that it had enormous potential in therapy and rehabilitation. It was to my great surprise and dismay that its use was not universal.

In my training and close working association with Anat I have had the opportunity to study some of the breakthroughs in our understanding of neuroscience that have become apparent only in the last decade [1]. (Indeed it was only in 1999 that the Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel admitted in print that he and David Hubel had been wrong in declaring that neuroplasticity is impossible beyond the critical period of infancy [2]). These begin to help provide a scientific explanation for the knowledge that Anat and her teacher Dr Moshe Feldenkrais have accrued through their experience over decades of transforming the lives of children and adults whom conventional medicine had believed beyond help…again that word, experience.

One of the pioneers of this neuroscientific revolution is Michael Merzenich. He and his colleagues, such as Nancy Byl, have shown, on the neurological level, the mechanisms for neuroplasticity and differentiation, both in therapy and normal development [3,4]. These mechanisms are fundamental to the learning process underlying the work of Anat Baniel in helping children and adults overcome the limitations they have in their physical, cognitive and emotional development. Furthermore, Merzenich has demonstrated the necessity of focused attention in order to make these plastic changes last [5,6]. Pre-requisite to the work of Anat Baniel is the awareness and focused attention that the individual must bring to their therapy _ the Anat Baniel Method is not a passive process imposed upon the client, even the most severely disabled of children participates in their path to improvement. Much has been made in the press recently of the positive effects of exercise on brain function but research clearly shows that that exercise must be combined with focused attention to be effective in promoting cortical development and pre-empting cortical decline. Mice in enriched environments show increased synaptic formation over those who merely exercise on a treadmill and the only physical leisure activity in a recent study to show cognitive improvement in the elderly was ballroom dancing – requiring thought and coordination as well as cardiovascular involvement [7,8,9]. Such focused attention as at the core of Anat’s method.

Edward Taub of the University of Alabama has also pioneered research showing the mechanisms whereby stroke victims first learn disuse of their affected side. Taub’s studies demonstrate a CNS correlate of therapy-induced recovery of function after nervous system damage in humans.which opens up the possibility for learning its re-use if the appropriate conditions for learning are provided as Anat’s practitioners have demonstrated with dramatic effect [10]. Similar mechanisms underlie the remarkable results seen with treatment of brachial plexus injury by the Anat Baniel Method. Old neurological patterns are replaced by new ones as clients learn to overcome their limitations.

New insights into the workings of the brain and the nature of consciousness are arising continually in the exciting field of cognitive neuroscience. One exciting area is the application of the principles of Quantum Physics to the mechanisms of brain functioning and the mind as expounded by the renowned physicist Henry Stapp of UCBerkeley in his book the Mindful Universe and numerous articles some of which are coauthored by the psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz [11,12]. This work is still controversial but provides a basis for the behavior of the human being as a complex dynamic system in its development and also in its progress through treatment. Once again, given the appropriate learning conditions, provided by a skilled practitioner, the outcome emerges not as a simple cause and effect relationship but as the result of an intelligent, sentient individual creating its own solution.

Many of the extraordinary outcomes resulting from this method have been dismissed by other professionals as mere coincidence and examples of spontaneous recovery or misdiagnosis. It is easy to see how occurrences outwith our experience as physicians may be seen to be beyond the realms of possibility. However, as another major player in contemporary neuroscience, V.S. Ramachandran of UCSD, warns us, more harm has been done in science by those who make a fetish out of skepticism, aborting ideas before they are born, than by those who gullibly accept untested theories [13]. Only last Monday, a study from UCLA showed a mechanism showed that regeneration is possible to recover supraspinal control of stepping following spinal cord injury [14]. Such recovery would have previously been deemed impossible. We need to be open to possibility.

Only a few weeks ago a local pediatrician was in tears when she saw the effects of only a week’s lessons of the Anat Baniel Method on one of her tiny clients. She was weeping for all the children whom she had treated in the past whose lives could have been helped so much if she had known of the Anat Baniel Method before. Fortunately, more and more physicians and therapists are experiencing the effectiveness of the most intelligent therapeutic modality of which I am aware. We, as clinicians, have a responsibility to make this work available to everyone.

I have the honor to have studied with Anat for the past 3 1/2 years. She is the best teacher with whom I have worked and has dispelled my skepticism as to whether the work, which she practices so brilliantly, can be taught to others. I am now privileged to be a part of a growing network of practitioners, nurtured by those with greater experience as my own experience grows.

References

[1] For a review see Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Amir Amedi, Felipe Fregni, and Lotfi B. Merabet The Plastic Human Brain Cortex Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2005. 28:377–401

[2] Torsten N. Wiesel Early Explorations of the Development and Plasticity
of the Visual Cortex: A Personal ViewJournal of Neurobiology, Volume 41(1999), Issue 1 (p 7-9)


[3] M.M.Merzenich et al 1983. Progression of change following median nerve section in the cortical representation of the hand in areas 3b and 1 in adult owl and squirrel monkeys. Neuroscience, 10(3):639-65

[4] N.N.Byl et al. 2003. Effect of sensory discrimination training on structure and function in patients with focal hand dystonia: a case series. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 84(10): 1505-14

[5] Recanzone, G.H., Merzenich, M.M., Jenkins, W.M., Grajski, K.A., & Dinse, H.R. (1992) Topographic reorganization of the hand representation in cortical area 3b of owl monkeys trained in a frequency-discrimination task. Journal of Neurophysiology 67:1031-1056.

[6] Recanzone, G.H., Schreiner, C.E., & Merzenich, M. M. (1993) Plasticity in the frequency representation of primary auditory cortex following discrimination training in adult owl monkeys. Journal of Neuroscience 13(1):87- 103.

[7] J.E. Black, K.R. Isaacs, B.J. Anderson, A.A. Alcantara and W.T. Greenough , Learning causes synaptogenesis, whereas motor activity causes angiogenesis, in cerebellar cortex of adult rats. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87 (1990), pp. 5568–5572.

[8] Ana C. Pereira,, Dan E. Huddleston,, Adam M. Brickman,, Alexander A. Sosunov, Rene Hen, Guy M. McKhann, Richard Sloan, Fred H. Gage, Truman R. Brown||, and Scott A. Small An in vivo correlate of exercise-induced neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus PNAS | March 27, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 13 | 5638-5643

[9] Verghese, J., Lipton, R.B., Katz, M.J., Hall, C.B., Derby, C.A., Kuslansky, G., Ambrose, A.F., Sliwinski, M. & Buschke, H. 2003. Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly. New England Journal of Medicine, 348 (25), 2508-2516.

[10] Liepert J, Miltner WH, Bauder H, Sommer M, Dettmers C, Taub E, Weiller C.Motor cortex plasticity during constraint-induced movement therapy in stroke patients. Neurosci Lett. 1998 Jun 26;250(1):5-8.

[11] Henry P.Stapp, Mindful Universe – Quantum mechanics and the participating observer. Springer-Verlag 2007

[12] Jeffrey M. Schwartz A Role for Volition and Attention in the Generation of New Brain Circuitry-Toward A Neurobiology of Mental Force. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8–9, 1999, pp. 115–42; Henry P. Stapp Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8–9, 1999, pp. 143–64

[13] Ramachandran, V.S.Creativity versus skepticism within science: more harm has been done in science by those who make a fetish out of skepticism, aborting ideas before they are born, than by those who gullibly accept untested theories. Skeptical Inquirer 30.6 (Nov-Dec 2006): 48(4).

[14] Gregoire Courtine, Bingbing Song, Roland R Roy, Hui Zhong, Julia E Herrmann, Yan A, Jingwei Qi, V Reggie Edgerton & Michael V Sofroniew Recovery of supraspinal control of stepping via indirect propriospinal relay connections after spinal cord injury Nature Medicine 14, 69 - 74 (2008) Published online: 6 January 2008