My Love Affair with the Brain

I watched the award-winning, PBS documentary, “My Love Affair with the Brain: The Life and Science of Dr. Marian Diamond.” In this film, Dr. Marian Diamond, one of the founders of modern neuroscience, discussed her research on neuroplasticity in the brain. Dr. Diamond was the second most popular college professor in the world in 2010 with over 4.6 million views on YouTube from her anatomy lectures. Dr. Diamond has spent more than 60 years studying the brain and is the author of the first study ever published about the brain of Albert Einstein. To further my learning on neuroplasticity, I explored Dr. Diamond's research studies online and searched for several other research studies on neuroplasticity. 

In the 1960s, it was believed that the brain’s potential was unchangeable and determined at birth. At age thirty-one, Dr. Diamond joined a team of University of California, Berkeley researchers to investigate neuroplasticity. Dr. Diamond and her team wanted to explore the brain and how it could be affected by the environment, not predetermined by genetics. For this research study, they tested rats. Some rats were put into an enriched environment; living together with novelty stimulus objects. Another group of rats were put into a standard colony, and the last group of rats were put in an impoverished condition. In this impoverished condition, the rats were separated and each rat was alone without any stimulus objects. After eighty days, Dr. Diamond compared the rats’ brains. Dr. Diamond found that a rat’s brain increased in dimension with an enriched environment, and a rat’s brain decreased in dimension in the impoverished environment. The conclusions in this study showed that the brain is able to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life; another name for this finding is called neuroplasticity. Dr. Diamond had proven that the brain’s structure changes based on the environment. 

Each day one has the opportunity to build and challenge the brain. Dr. Diamond stated, “you use it, or you lose it.” She understood that one must create an enriched environment in order to have a healthy brain. A few research study topics that supported Dr. Diamond’s findings on neuroplasticity included exercise, travel, running, reading aloud to children, bilingualism, playing a musical instrument, and staying socially connected. Research studies conducted that impaired the brain included childhood poverty, fear, trauma, isolation, sleep deprivation, and protein deficiency. Thus, Dr. Diamond discovered the five items that are essential for a better brain: diet, exercise, challenge, newness, and love. Dr. Diamond also conducted research on how love affects the brain. She showed affection to rats in an enriched environment. Neuroplasticity was shown in this study because the rats that received affection lived longer than rats that did not receive affection in enriched environments. 

For me, the most inspiring part of this documentary was when Dr. Diamond took her findings of neuroplasticity to help impoverished orphans in Cambodia. She developed the Enrichment in Action Project, which continued for over ten years. She decided to conduct research on children in Cambodia because they were only fed once a day and did not have shelter. She created an enriched environment for these children that included the five items that are essential for a better brain. She applied scientific knowledge to practical problems. After some time, five of her students finished college and many more benefitted from the enriched environment by gaining many skills. 

I chose this documentary as part of my assignment because I think that Dr. Diamond’s work positively changed science and proved that the brain is affected by the environment. I was also interested in learning about the origin of neuroplasticity and the research behind it.  This assignment helped me understand and learn about the endless potential that each person has when pursuing goals and gaining independence. I think that it is important for each person to understand the benefits of Dr. Diamond’s research; neuroplasticity shows that each person has an equal opportunity to reach goals. From my past assignments, I have learned about neuroplasticity and how the brain rewires itself to adapt and succeed in the environment. Thus, this assignment helped me understand in more detail about neuroplasticity. Overall, I highly recommend this documentary to anyone that would like to learn more about neuroplasticity and Dr. Diamond’s research. 

Luna Productions. (2016). My love affair with the brain: The life and science of Dr. Marian Diamond. https://lunaproductions.com/my-love-affair-with-the-brain-streaming-ica-special-offer/