Synonyms
Plasticity
Definition
The natural redevelopment of or improvement in function following insult or injury to the nervous system.
Current Knowledge
Spontaneous recovery generally occurs following acute, nonprogressive, neurological insults such as strokes (either hemorrhagic or occlusive), closed head trauma, tumor resection, and anoxia. The mechanisms underlying behavioral or functional improvements depend, in large part, on the nature of the original pathology.
The many theories about how the brain recovers from such insults may be thought of as falling into one of two broad categories, for example, those that attempt to explain either acute (short-term) or long-range recovery. Some common mechanisms associated with acute recovery likely involve edema and other forms of increased pressure causing temporary suppression of function. Edema can result from a breakdown of intracellular processes or cytotoxic edema(as is common in infarcts), a disruption of the blood-brain barrier...
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Kleiner, J.S. (2018). Spontaneous Recovery. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_692
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_692
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