Humans are the only species known to have consciousness, awareness that we have brains and bodies【C1】___adaptability that we can affect the course our lives take, that we can make choices【C2】that vastly affect the quality of our lives—biologically, intellectually, environmentally, and spiritually. As humans, we have the ability to mold our【C3】beings to become what or who we wish to become. While some of us may,【C4】, 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【C5】___in our hands.

All that【C6】___, until the last decade, scientists believed that the human brain and its connections were formed during gestation and infancy and remained【C7】unchanged through childhood. They believed that humans had a given number of neurons in a specific brain structure, and【C8】the number might vary among people, once you were done with childhood development, you were set in this【C9】. Your connections were already made, and the learning and growing period of your brain was over. In the last decade, however, researchers have found【C10】___evidence that this is not so, and that something called neuroplasticity continues throughout our lives.

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