Skip to content

Neurons, signals & neuroplasticity

How brain cells send messages, and how the brain rewires itself with practice - the science of neuroplasticity that makes rehabilitation work.

Everything the brain does comes down to tiny cells passing messages. Understanding this helps explain the single most hopeful idea in rehabilitation: the brain can change.

Meet the neuron

A neuron is a nerve cell with three parts:

  • Dendrites - branches that receive signals from other cells.
  • Cell body - which adds them up and decides whether to fire.
  • Axon - a long cable that passes the signal on, often wrapped in fatty myelin that speeds it up.

You have roughly 86 billion neurons, each connecting to thousands of others - more connections than there are stars in the Milky Way.

How signals travel

Inside a neuron, the message is electrical - a fast pulse racing down the axon. Between neurons, it turns chemical: the pulse releases messengers called neurotransmitters (like dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine) across a tiny gap - the synapse - to the next cell. Many medicines and symptoms come down to these chemical messengers being too high, too low, or out of balance.

Neuroplasticity - the brain that rewires

Connections aren’t fixed. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s lifelong ability to reshape itself:

  • Strengthening the synapses you use often (“cells that fire together, wire together”).
  • Pruning connections you rarely use.
  • Rerouting - healthy areas taking on jobs from damaged ones after injury.

This is exactly why therapy and practice work. Recovery isn’t about willpower alone; it’s about giving the brain the right, repeated experiences so it rebuilds useful pathways.

What helps the brain rewire

Research points to a few reliable ingredients:

  • Repetition and intensity - many correct repetitions, not just a few.
  • Specific, meaningful practice - training the exact skill you want back.
  • Challenge at the right level - hard enough to stretch, easy enough to succeed.
  • Sleep, movement, and mood - the conditions that let learning stick.

Our Practice activities and the external games player are built on these principles - short, repeatable, just-hard-enough tasks.

Helpful next