Neuroplastic
Required Books
Dispenza, J. (2012). Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc.file
Recommended Resources
Dispenza, J. (2007). Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.file
Hebb, D. O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
Workshop for Quantum University
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1. Neur-o-plas-tic-ity:
• Our brain’s ability to change its synaptic wiring by learning information and
by recording experiences… and to maintain a modified state of being.
• Plasticity allows us to evolve our actions/modify our behavior so that we do a
better job in life.
2. Neur-o-rig-id-it-y:
• Only using our brain’s pre-wired synaptic connections (memories) without
making any new connections. Never learning from experience.
• Rigidity is to process the same thoughts and to perform the same
actions…and expect a different result.
3. Neur-o-plas-tic-ity (brain changes):
Upgrading or evolving the brain’s hardware and software through a conscious
interaction with the environment so that new systems can adapt to new demands.
Neur-o-rig-id-i-ty (brain never changes):
Using the brain’s same hardware and software by unconsciously processing the
same thoughts through different interactions in the environment.
4. Neur-o-rig-id-i-ty: (thinking in the box)
Living life from past memories without learning new things and having new
experiences. Keeping the brain firing in the same pattern and
combinations.
Neur-o-plas-tic-ity: (thinking out of the box)
Learning new things, creating new experiences…making new memories. Making
the brain fire in new patterns and combinations.
5. Neur-on: nerve cell, brain cell
The simplest functional unit of the nervous system. They possess the unique ability
to store and communicate information between each other.
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6. Learning:
Creating or making new synaptic connections.
7. Remembering:
Maintaining or sustaining synaptic connections.
8. The two ways we make synaptic connections:
Semantic memories: Learning information, knowledge, and philosophy.
Episodic memories: Having novel experiences, embracing new events in life.
9. Hebbian learning:
Nerve cells that fire together….wire together.
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10. Law of Association:
Using the brain’s stored information to learn new information; building new circuits
by using existing circuits; using what is familiar to understand the unfamiliar.
Using old memories to form new memories; using knowns to understand
unknowns; using existing synaptic connections to make new connections;
using the past to predict the future.
Example: Neuron is like a leafless oak tree; receptor sites are like lotus
flowers sitting on a pond; the malleus bone of the inner ear looks like a
hammer.
11. Law of Repetition:
Repeating a thought, action, or skill over and over again until it becomes:
easy, familiar, common, natural, automatic, routine, habitual, effortless,
second nature, subconscious, unconscious, implicit.
Neural Growth Factor: The chemical glue or miracle grow that makes new
synaptic connections stick, become more enhanced and flourish, i.e.
neurotrophics.
MALLEUS
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12. Law of Association: How we learn
Law of Repetition: How we remember
13. Neural network, i.e. neural net:
Neural nets are formed by combining: the law of association (learning) along with
the law of repetition (remembering) to create a new level of mind (firing in new ways).
They are the automatic hardwired programs that we unconsciously and
automatically use every day.
Gangs of neurons that have fired and wired together to form a community of neurosynaptic connections that are related to a concept, idea, thought process, memory,
skill, behavior, action.
i.e., Learning new things and remembering them until they become second nature.
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14. Neuroplasticity (revisited):
To fire a series of many diverse neural nets in different combinations, sequences,
and orders to produce a new level of mind…and to be able to repeat the same frame
of mind at will…and make it look natural and easy.
15. Frontal lobe: (home of “the you” and “the me”)
The seat of our freewill, learning, intention, invention, attention, speculation, decision
making, behavior control, and focused concentration. It restrains our impulsive emotional
reactions.
The newest and most evolved part of the human brain and nervous system.
It is the most neuroplastic part of our entire brain.
Frontal lobe:
It allows us to make thought as real as anything else.
It has connections to all other parts of the brain and when it is in full
operation
According to functional brain scans, it
quiets down all other circuits in the brain
so that nothing else is being processed
but a single concept. It is the brain’s
symphony leader.
It is the brain’s “volume control” to our sensory/motor feedback from the body,
our sensory awareness of the environment
and our concept of time.
When we are examining new outcomes or when we are thinking about
modifying our behavior, the frontal lobe can access all the diverse neural
networks and can organize them in different combinations, orders, and
sequences to make a new level of mind and create new possibilities.
It coordinates how the rest of the brain works.
It changes the mind.
It reorganizes how we process the data bank of stored knowledge and
experiences
and it seamlessly pieces them together in a nonlinear
way to make a new plan.
It allows us to observe our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, i.e., metacognition.
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16. Mental Rehearsal creates new neural networks
When we become so involved in the imaging process that the brain does not know
the difference between the internal and the external world, it tracks thoughts as an
experience itself. As a new mindful neural network is created just by thinking, the
old mindless neural network is pruned away because the glue that holds the old
circuits together is now used for sealing and forming new synaptic connections. In
evolving the brain, new memories must replace the old memories.
17. Hebbian learning (revisited)
“Nerve cells that no longer fire together, no longer wire together.”
It’s the Universal Law. You don’t use it, you lose it.
Throwing out the mental trash!
18. The Science of Changing Your Mind
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Our senses and our feelings should be the
last to experience what mind has created.
The Ultimate Question
Can you believe in a future that you cannot see or experience
with your senses but you have thought about enough times in
your mind ….that it is now wired in your brain?
And can you emotionally embrace a future potential before the
actual experience so many times that you emotionally condition
your body to reflect that new mind by signaling new genes in new
ways?
If so, then your brain and body are physically changed ahead of
the actual experience and you just moved from living in your past
to living in your future. In fact, you are living ahead of time.
When you successfully apply this new paradigm, your brain and
body are no longer a record of the past but a map to your new
future.
To live by this law is to live by the quantum law.
Quantum Law
Our environment is an extension of our mind.
When we change our mind, our life changes……
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Notes/Re-mind
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© Copyright Dr Joe Dispenza. June 2013. All rights reserved.
IQ‐501 – Neuroplasticity
Presenter:
Dr. Joe Dispenza
To change is to ‘be’
greater than
your Environment,
your Body
and Time…
Does Your Environment Control
Your Thinking
Or
Does Your Thinking Control
Your Environment?
IQ‐501 – Neuroplasticity
Presenter:
Dr. Joe Dispenza
1
Marks: 1
If we wait for anything outside us to make us happy, then we are not following the quantum law.
We are relying on the outer to change the inner.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question2
Marks: 1
Although James had no concept of the synapse, as shown by reference to the continuity between
projecting fibers and receiving neuronal cell bodies in his sketches of putative neuronal circuits,
his speculations have an amazing modern flavor insofar as they clearly posit the possibility that
_______.
Choose one answer.
a. by virtue of its heightened resistance, incapacity occurs during functional activity
b. neuronal paths are either formed or opened up by use
c. akin to hydraulic models, “blocked flow” is a process by which an activated neural path
releases all available energy
d. functional association is diminished between neurons which happen to be
simultaneously active
Question3
Marks: 1
2014 – John O’Keefe, Edvard Moser, and May-Britt Moser share the Nobel Prize for their
discoveries about cells that constitute a ______ in the brain.
Choose one answer.
a. transmitting system
b. positioning system
c. pathway
d. neuronal path
Question4
Marks: 1
Each discharge of a sensory cell in the forward direction (that is, the direction toward the motor
cells) tends to drain the cells lying behind the discharging one of whatever tension they may
possess. The drainage from the rearward cell is what for the first time makes the fibers pervious.
What results is a new-formed path; what direction is this path?
Choose one answer.
a. rearward to forward
b. intersecting
c. forward to rearward
d. parallel
Question5
Marks: 1
What brainwave pattern is representative of conscious, analytical thinking?
Choose one answer.
a. alpha
b. beta
c. theta
d. gamma
e. delta
Question6
Marks: 1
The size of the gap is similar from person to person.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question7
Marks: 1
What is widely considered to be the mechanism by which information can be coded and retained
in neurons in the brain?
Choose one answer.
a. synaptic scaling
b. inhibitory feedback
c. Hebbian plasticity
d. firing rate homeostasis
Question8
Marks: 1
Change at the synaptic level can produce changes in wiring patterns of entire neural circuits.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question9
Marks: 1
The midlife crisis is an attempt to create a new identity from the inside.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question10
Marks: 1
Mentally rehearsing allows an individual to go from thinking to being without having to do
anything.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question11
Marks: 1
Epigenetics suggests that we can signal our genes to express new proteins without changing the
genetic blueprint.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question12
Marks: 1
The term commonly stated as “cells that fire together, wire together,” describes _______.
Choose one answer.
a. neurotransmitters
b. neuroplasticity
c. Hebb’s Rule
d. synaptic plasticity
Question13
Marks: 1
When the body is in constant stress response mode because of the external environment, there is
very little energy left to care for the body’s internal environment. The immune system cannot
keep up and as a result sickness, whether it be a cold, cancer, or rheumatoid arthritis, occurs.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question14
Marks: 1
The amount of activity at any given point in the brain-cortex is the sum of the tendencies of all
other points to discharge into it, such tendencies being proportionate to _______. (Select all that
apply.)
Choose at least one answer.
a. the absence of any rival point functionally disconnected with the first point, into which
the discharges may be diverted
b. the number of excitements from point to point
c. the number of times the excitement of each other point may have accompanied that of
the point in question
d. the intensity of such excitements
Question15
Marks: 1
How do neurons communicate? (Select all that apply.)
Choose at least one answer.
a. emotional signals
b. electrical signals
c. physical signals
d. chemical signals
Question16
Marks: 1
Functional neuroplasticity depends upon two basic processes; what are these processes?
Choose one answer.
a. learning and memory
b. impulse and learning
c. information and memory
d. action and impulse
Question17
Marks: 1
The process of transmission of energy across the synapse leaves its resistance to the passage of
the impulse in that direction permanently_______.
Choose one answer.
a. neutral
b. heightened
c. even
d. lowered
Question18
Marks: 1
How can synaptic change occur one postsynaptic spike at a time under normal physiological
conditions that are found in real neural networks with ongoing activity?
Choose one answer.
a. neurological dependent plasticity
b. spike-timing-dependent plasticity
c. intercellular dependent plasticity
d. cellular dependent plasticity
Question19
Marks: 1
In the Tibetan language, to meditate means “__________.”
Choose one answer.
a. to become self
b. to become familiar with
c. to overcome self
d. to quiet self
Question20
Marks: 1
Through ______, the circuits in the brain can reorganize themselves to reflect our objectives.
Choose one answer.
a. concentration
b. meditation
c. repeated prayer
d. mental rehearsal
Question21
Marks: 1
The term plasticity encompasses several different brain functions. One type of plasticity is the
ability to change the synaptic strength, including changes in the strength of neurotransmitters.
What type of plasticity is this?
Choose one answer.
a. neuroplasticity
b. experience-dependent plasticity
c. metaplasticity
d. synaptic plasticity
Question22
Marks: 1
The quantum model states that all physical reality is primarily ______ existing in a vast web that
is ______ across space and time. That web, the quantum field, holds all probabilities which we
can collapse into reality through our thoughts (consciousness), observation, feelings, and state of
being.
Choose one answer.
a. energy, connected
b. energy, interconnected
c. matter, interconnected
d. matter, connected
Question23
Marks: 1
As an individual unmemorizes any emotion that has become part of their identity, the gap
between how they appear and who they really are ______.
Choose one answer.
a. opens
b. widens
c. narrows
d. closes
Question24
Marks: 1
In the quantum model, the physical universe is a/an _______, ______, unified field of
information, potentially everything but physically nothing.
Choose one answer.
a. material, connected
b. immaterial, connected
c. immaterial, interconnected
d. material, interconnected
Question25
Marks: 1
A sustained high in which brainwave pattern makes it hard to focus on our inner self?
Choose one answer.
a. alpha
b. beta
c. delta
d. theta
e. gamma
Question26
Marks: 1
What can be defined as the brain’s ability to change, remodel and reorganize for the purpose of
better ability to adapt to new situations?
Choose one answer.
a. neuroplasticity
b. neurotransmitting
c. sensory prosthesis
d. immunoreactivity
Question27
Marks: 1
The body becomes addicted to guilt or any emotion in the same way that it would get addicted to
drugs.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question28
Marks: 1
The concept of neuroplasticity was first introduced over 100 years ago. Who first suggested the
concept of plasticity as the result of the formation of new connections between cortical neurons?
Choose one answer.
a. Donald Hebb
b. Santiago Ramon y Cajal
c. Ernesto Lugaro
d. William James
e. Eugenio Tanzi
Question29
Marks: 1
Memorized feelings do not limit us to re-creating the past.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question30
Marks: 1
By paying attention to the old habit of being you, your conscious participation begins to separate
you from those unconscious programs and give you more control over them.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question31
Marks: 1
Staying busy keeps unwanted emotions at bay.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question32
Marks: 1
Mind and matter are fully separable.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question33
Marks: 1
What are steps six and seven in the meditative process?
Choose at least one answer.
a. creating and rehearsing
b. redirecting
c. induction
d. reorganizing
Question34
Marks: 1
Michael Merzenich’s research found with simple forms of training in older individuals; ____ of
neurological abilities were substantially, if not completely, restored.
Choose one answer.
a. 20%
b. All
c. 40%
d. 60%
Question35
Marks: 1
Hormone centers of the body correspond to the _______.
Choose one answer.
a. major body systems
b. primary organs
c. chakra points
d. major chi channels
Question36
Marks: 1
The quantum field responds to what we want; it does not respond to who we are being.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question37
Marks: 1
Thought alone can trigger the human stress response and keep it going.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question38
Marks: 1
If you can send into the quantum field a signal that is coherent in thought and feeling (state of
being), independent of the external world, then something different will show up in your life.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question39
Marks: 1
Less than ____ percent of all diseases today stem from single-gene disorders (such as Tay-Sachs
and Huntington’s chorea), whereas around ____ percent of all illnesses are related to lifestyle
choices, chronic stress, and toxic factors in the environment.
Choose one answer.
a. 10, 90
b. 5, 95
c. 7, 93
d. 15, 85
Question40
Marks: 1
Neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire and create new circuits as a result of input from
the environment and our conscious intentions, is how we can create a new level of mind. This
ability is available for what age span?
Choose one answer.
a. 5 — 25
b. at any age
c. 41 — 60
d. 26 — 40
Question41
Marks: 1
What are steps two and three in the meditative process?
Choose at least one answer.
a. reorganizing
b. admitting and declaring
c. recognizing
d. observing and reminding
Question42
Marks: 1
A/an ______ is a chemical state of being, generally short-term, that is an expression of a
prolonged emotional reaction.
Choose one answer.
a. disposition
b. mood
c. mindset
d. attitude
Question43
Marks: 1
The subjective mind has an effect on the objective world.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question44
Marks: 1
True empowerment comes when we start to look deeply at our ________.
Choose one answer.
a. beliefs
b. attitudes
c. thought processes
d. behaviors
Question45
Marks: 1
Change entails new ways of ______, ______, and ______.
Choose one answer.
a. thinking, doing, being
b. discerning, doing, being
c. thinking, doing, becoming
d. thinking, achieving, being
Question46
Marks: 1
Meditation takes us into what brain-wave state(s)? (Select all that apply.)
Choose at least one answer.
a. delta
b. alpha
c. gamma
d. theta
e. beta
Question47
Marks: 1
The environment, by activating or deactivating particular genes, is the most causative factor in
producing disease.
Answer:TrueFalse
Question48
Marks: 1
What is considered the neurophysiological basis of Hebbian learning and has been shown to be
sensitive to both contingency and contiguity between pre- and postsynaptic activity?
Choose one answer.
a. homeo plasticity
b. Spike-timing-dependent plasticity
c. cortical plasticity
d. synaptic scaling
e. Hebbian plasticity
Question49
Marks: 1
If we share the same experiences, we share the same emotions and the same energy. Just like two
atoms of oxygen bond to form the air we breathe, an invisible field of energy (beyond space and
time) binds us. This kind of bond is a _______.
Choose one answer.
a. quantum bond
b. emotional bond
c. psychic bond
d. energetic bond
Question50
Marks: 1
What typically triggers the postsynaptic process?
Choose one answer.
a. intercellular calcium
b. cellular enzymes
c. intercellular Bromide
d. neurological dysfunction