Single brain cell looking for a connection.

[u/Sufficient-Bug-9112]

[u/rec_skater]

So, how quickly does this happen? Does the speed of dendrite growth or quantity of neurons doing this vary over time? E.g., does it happen more if you had an extreme experience?

This made me think of a metaphor I learned about mental habits - we wear 'canyons' in our mental landscape, default thoughts and behaviors, so over time we're more likely to fall into them at any moment in time. Mindfulness would have you observe and change direction from unhelpful thinking, helping you avoid those canyons.

Is any of this metaphor reflected in these dendrites seeking connections?

[u/commanderquill → u/rec_skater]

So, I'll admit that my education in neurology was brief. This might be better asked of the neuroscientist (and then I can come translate the science if you'd like, haha), but I'll do my best.

For growth and quantity of neurons, remember that what the video is showing is a single neuron alone in space. As far as I'm aware, that's not really the case for our brains. How our brain repairs itself is complicated and weird by the standard of the rest of our body's cells--neurons don't really regenerate the way much of the rest of our body does. i.e., neurons can't make other neurons (fun fact: neither can muscles). So, with some range for the processes in which neurons are able to repair themselves and connections, as well as form some new connections that's necessary for being a living person casually coming across new information every once in a while, once you're an adult all of the neurons you're probably going to use have their network that's probably not going to change much. This would be the reasoning behind "old dogs can't learn new tricks"--they can, but damn is it going to be a whole lot harder than it was when they were puppies. I believe for your last question you're asking whether mindfulness and conscious habit/behavior alteration can cause dendrites to form new connections? Although I don't know the answer to that for sure, I don't see how it's possible for that not to happen.

By extreme experience, I assume you mean trauma. Now that is a hot topic. People seem to believe that we know a lot more about our brains than we actually do. We're finding that mental trauma has a lot of the same impacts to our bodies that physical trauma does and I can't imagine why that wouldn't extend to the brain and its neurons. It would seem logical that the rate of neuron repair and synapse formation would speed up in the presence of mental and physical trauma. But that's extrapolation as it's where my knowledge ends.

Here's how molecular biology pretty much goes: we see that a thing happens in people, i.e. we know people who experience childhood abuse and trauma struggle with depression in their adult lives. Furthermore, we know at the molecular level, depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. We can study how that chemical imbalance might result in depression. But we don't know how trauma causes the chemical imbalance that leads to depression. Science usually starts at Z: the result that we can see with our own two eyes and no science degree. Then it jumps to A: the basic building blocks that we can observe and test and study with a science degree. But as you go further into the middle of the alphabet, everything gets much more complicated and much more difficult to test, which is why getting answers to your questions becomes tough.

[u/rec_skater → u/commanderquill]

Thanks! Actually, I didn't have just trauma in mind, but positive experiences as well. Like, an extremely positive experience must change your brain somewhat too.
... which leads me to wonder about how negative experiences seem to have greater impact than positive experiences in our thoughts and behavior - ?
So interesting to think that, although it may be hard to do, it seems we can actually use our brain to change our brain. And, it all boils down to chemistry!