ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a few rare studies that have investigated adaptive cerebral reorganisation after cognitive training. The most frequently used method to foster recovery after brain damage is the teaching of compensatory strategies. In this case, recovery is not pursued by restoring a lost function, but by offering patients with acquired brain injury strategies to compensate for their impairments. Acquired brain injury often affects large portions of cortical areas, but may also damage subcortical brain regions, as in stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI). Despite the caveats, several older studies, which were conducted when rehabilitation was not as common, point to considerable spontaneous recovery of cognitive processes, mainly during the first six months after brain injury. In a cross-sectional study, Bond found that, even without rehabilitation interventions, the IQ of TBI patients with a post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) of less than 11 weeks recovered substantially within six months post onset and stabilised to within one standard deviation of the mean.
