30 / 36
www.
edises
.it
12
Part One
Learning, planning and evaluation
While it is true that organisms, in relation to the structure and mor-
phology, have basic models of behaviour that characterise the speci-
ficity of the subject, it is also true that these models are not presented
as rigid paradigms on which the man’s identity is outlined, but they
show aspects of flexibility that open the field of investigation to a
plurality of hypotheses.
1.4
The contribution of neuroscience to psychology
and education
While it is true that the nervous system, being a rigid structure mor-
phologically, does not show new formations of synaptic junctions
1
, it
is also true that it shows, in any event, levels of functional plasticity
related to modifications of the synaptic activity and changes in the
chemical transmitters.
The invariability of the scheme of neuron connections according to
rigid interconnections overlaps onto a bridging neuronal activity that
uses conduction circuits and variable adjustment systems and that de-
termine the levels of functional plasticity.
Marvin Minsky says that “
the brain uses processes that modify themselves
”
2
.
The stresses from the external environment, transmitted according
to itineraries following the structural plan, but assumed according to
variables reception levels, determine different responses, which can
be individuals, correlated to the wealth of genetic memories, relating
to the biological evolution, and of acquired memories, related to the
lived experience.
The functional plasticity of the human brain, understood in relation
with the factors that determine it, allows man to adapt to the chang-
ing environmental conditions.
Man gives the environment the most appropriate answers, by using
behaviours that, in re-establishing a new balance between the sub-
ject and his
habitat
, help to change this. If it is true that man acts on
the environment tending to modify its aspect in the most favourable
1
The synaptic junction is the point of connection in the neurons (nerve
cells) in the bone marrow that allows the entry into the spinal cord and the
exit from it of the nervous stimuli and impulses.
2
M. Minsky in G. Petracchi
Neuroscienze, psicologia, educazione, Atti del Conve-
gno, La mente del bambino
, Sorrento 1996.