The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science - Paperback

Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself—the groundbreaking exploration of neuroplasticity revealing how the human brain can heal, adapt, and transform throughout life, presenting revolutionary science through compelling personal stories that demonstrate the brain we're born with is not the brain we're bound to keep.

Norman Doidge, M.D., psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher, published The Brain That Changes Itself in 2007, overturning the centuries-old notion that the adult brain is fixed and immutable. Through compelling narratives of scientists and patients, Doidge reveals how neuroplasticity enables recovery from stroke and brain injury, treatment of learning disorders and mental illness, and the profound changes that occur through meditation and contemplative practice.

What you'll discover:

• The revolutionary science of neuroplasticity and brain change
• Recovery from stroke, traumatic brain injury, and learning disorders
• Treatment approaches for depression, anxiety, and trauma
• How meditation and mental practice physically reshape the brain
• The relationship between thought, attention, and neural structure
• The brain's capacity for self-directed neuroplastic change

We meet a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to function as a whole, blind people who learn to see, stroke patients who recover movement decades after injury, and individuals who overcome depression and anxiety through neuroplastic interventions. Each story illuminates a principle of brain change: neurons that fire together wire together, the brain is a use-dependent organ shaped by our mental activities.

What makes The Brain That Changes Itself essential for contemplative readers is its scientific validation of what wisdom traditions have long taught—that sustained mental practice transforms consciousness. Neuroplasticity research demonstrates that meditation physically alters brain structure, that attention training strengthens neural circuits, that compassion practice increases empathy-related brain regions. Doidge bridges the language of neuroscience and the insights of contemplative traditions, showing that transformation and awakening have neural correlates.

Perfect for: Students of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, readers interested in neuroplasticity and brain change, those exploring the relationship between meditation and neuroscience, practitioners seeking scientific grounding for contemplative practice, readers interested in recovery from brain injury and mental illness, and contemplative readers seeking to understand how mental training physically reshapes the brain.

This paperback edition presents Norman Doidge's landmark work on neuroplasticity—the revolutionary science demonstrating that the brain can heal, adapt, and transform throughout life, offering hope for recovery and profound validation for contemplative practice.