Humans are the only species known to have consciousness, awareness that we have brains and bodies 51 adaptability that we can affect the course our lives take, that we can make choices 52 that vastly affect the quality of our livesbiologically, intellectually, environmentally, and spiritually. As humans, we have the ability to mold our 53 beings to become what or who we wish to become. While some of us may, 54 , have genetic and biological imperatives that may require medication or training to overcome, or at least to modulate, the vast majority of us do, in fact, hold our emotional 55 in our hands.
All that 56 , until the last decade, scientists believed that the human brain and its connections were formed during gestation and infancy and remained 57 unchanged through childhood. They believed that humans had a given number of neurons in a specific brain structure, and 58 the number might vary among people, once you were done with childhood development, you were set in this 59 . Your connections were already made, and the learning and growing period of your brain was over. In the last decade, however, researchers have found 60 evidence that this is not so, and that something called neuroplasticity continues throughout our lives.