Neuorganisation

Neuorganisation is the process by which the nervous system reorganizes its structure, connections, and functional organization in response to experience, learning, injury, or disease, resulting in changes to perception, movement, and cognition.

It involves mechanisms of neuroplasticity, including synaptic strengthening or weakening, dendritic remodeling, changes in inhibitory-excitatory balance, and remapping of cortical representations; in some regions, neurogenesis can contribute to reorganization over time.

Neuorganisation occurs across motor, sensory, and cognitive domains, enabling recovery after brain injury, adaptation to altered sensory inputs, and the optimization of skills through practice, with brain networks reconfiguring to support new functional demands.

Research methods such as neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and noninvasive brain stimulation document adaptive and maladaptive reorganizations, including shifts in activation patterns, changes in connectivity, and altered network efficiency.

Applications include rehabilitation planning after stroke or spinal cord injury, educational strategies, skill acquisition, and brain-computer interface development; it also relates to chronic pain and phantom limb phenomena where reorganization contributes symptoms.

Limitations and debates focus on individual variability, the time course of changes, ethical considerations, and the boundary between beneficial adaptation and maladaptive reorganization that may reinforce symptoms or deficits.

See also neuroplasticity, cortical remapping, brain plasticity, rehabilitation neuroscience.