Commentary: Extraordinary environments, extreme neuroplasticity and mental disorder – reflections on pathways from adversity to mental disorder prompted by McCrory, Gerin, and Viding (2017)

Neuroplasticity, the brain's capacity to be shaped in response to environmental experience, has been claimed to resemble a double-edged sword – potentiating growth and healing when individuals are exposed to normative, benign or therapeutic environments on the one hand, mediating mental disorder development in those exposed to adversity, on the other. However, questions about the scope and limits of neuroplasticity and, especially, its clinical significance, remain unanswered.