Brain Plasticity and Innovation: A Model

Prerequisite to any examination of the consequences of innovation on human behavior is a working model of brain plasticity. I define this arbitrarily as the ratio of dendrite connectivity over pruning which, at one end of the spectrum, defines aspects of autism, hyperconnectivity, and at the other defines aspects of schizophrenia, excessive pruning according to recent genetic studies. This model excludes the formation of new neurons in adults, which does occur, for purposes of simplification and concentrates on the formation and destruction of dendrite connections in a phenomena of the constant rewiring of the brain, plasticity.
Armed with this model, a larger model of response to innovation becomes possible. Positing an aggregate learning curve to adopting a specific technology, there are five characteristic states to that adjustment in behavior. There is the prophet state, well ahead of the curve. There is the autistic state, ahead of the curve. There is the normal state, even with the aggregate curve. There is the laggard state, behind the curve, and there is the schizophrenic state, off the back of the curve. Please keep in mind that these are characterizations of brain plasticity, not value statements nor epithets.
This model implies aggregate states of efficient task performance in the deployment of new technology, the productivity curve, in which the five states occur as a specific population in relation to that curve as a function of brain plasticity.

To be continued.....