The brain is *extremely* plastic. A neuroscientist's father was a stroke victim who had damage to 97% of the nerves that went to his spinal cord. Yet in his late 70s he recovered enough to teach and go mountain climbing, after being unable to get on or off the toilet. The damaged areas never healed. He recovered all that function with 3% of the nerves.
The book is called The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, M.D., available on BrillianceAudio CD. Recommended to every MS sufferer, especially those with vestibular balance problems (like me) and cognitive problems (like me) and sensory problems (like me) and motor problems (like me), because they are all plastic and re-learnable and re-mappable. It seems useless, if you could so easily lose it again so soon. If progression can be halted and retraining the brain can begin, I think it might only take a year or two to get many functions back using new neural pathways. The brain learns fast, even when it is old.
