NeuroToggle®
Utilizing Neuroplasticity Instruction Strategies to Optimize the Learning Environment to Strengthen, Time, Expand, and Grow Neural Connections
NeuroToggle® Principle:
“Every skill and behavior is a neural circuit shaped by neuroplasticity.”
Neural connections encode the information for each skill or behavior. This includes both cognitive skills/behaviors through cognitive neural circuits and motor skills/behaviors through motor neural circuits.
During the prenatal phase, genetics provides the blueprint for neural development, governing processes like neuron formation, migration, and initial connectivity
After birth, nurture becomes the dominant force, with sensory input, social interaction, and practice shaping the brain’s pathways and functionality. These experiences determine how the brain builds, expands, strengthens, and times its connections.
Because of this, neural circuits can be refined through well established teaching pedagogy that creates the conditions the brain needs for learning to occur.
What is NeuroToggle?
NeuroToggle is a framework of teaching strategies that create the conditions the brain needs for learning. These strategies help anyone, but they are especially relevant for neurodivergent learners because research shows:
• Glutamate increases the brain’s ability to link new information to existing pathways.
Neurodivergent individuals often have dysregulated glutamate levels, which means anything connected to what is already known may be learned atypically fast or atypically slow.
• Dopamine allows the brain to create new pathways, not just strengthen old ones.
Neurodivergent individuals also show dopamine differences, so new skill development may be atypically fast or atypically slow.
• Oxytocin receptors on glutamatergic neurons in the PFC simultaneously influence social skills, social awareness, and social anxiety.
Strengthening Connections
Consolidating and reinforcing encoded information for long term retention.
Once neural pathways are formed, they must be reinforced and stabilized to ensure long-term retention. Consolidation transforms fragile short-term memories into durable long-term memories, primarily through long-term potentiation (LTP), myelination, and synaptogenesis. Without reinforcement, unused connections weaken due to long-term depression (LTD) and synaptic pruning.
Building New Connections
Encoding knowledge by forming new neural pathways.
Learning begins with encoding, where new neural pathways are formed in response to experience and instruction. However, encoding does not guarantee accuracy, as the brain stores information as it is received, whether correct or incorrect, making structured learning essential.
Timing Connections
Timing of Connections - Optimizing learning efficiency through retrieval cycles, spacing, and sleep.
Learning efficiency depends on when and how often information is retrieved and reinforced. The brain optimizes learning through spaced repetition, retrieval cycles, and sleep-based consolidation, which ensures knowledge is not just stored but also easily accessible when needed.
Expanding Connections
Expanding Connections - Modifying, adapting, and integrating knowledge through reconsolidation.
Learning is not static. It must be flexible, adaptable, and integrated across different cognitive domains. Reconsolidation occurs when memories are retrieved and temporarily modified before being stored again, allowing the brain to correct errors, refine knowledge, and increase adaptability.