Reshaping the brain, re-opening to the world

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell,
A hell of heaven.
—John Milton, PARADISE LOST

DID YOU EVER WONDER, somewhat apprehensively, whether
your true inner Command Center rests in the complex biomechanics of your brain or the vast reaches of your mind? It
always seemed to me as inscrutable as asking which came first,
the chicken or the egg. But the study of neuroplasticity is changing the way scientists think about the mind/brain connection.
While they’ve known for years that the brain is the physical substrate for the mind, the central mystery of neuroscience is how
the mind influences the physical structure of the brain. In the
last few decades, thanks to PET and MRI imaging techniques,
scientists can observe what’s actually going on in the brain while
people sleep, work, make decisions, or attempt to function under
limitations caused by illness, accident, or war.