Oh yes, we can indeed

From THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop

BY NATALIE ANGIER PUBLISHED: AUGUST 17, 2009

“According to Bruce S. McEwen, head of the neuroendocrinology laboratory at Rockefeller University, the new findings offer a particularly elegant demonstration of a principle that researchers have just begun to grasp. “The brain is a very resilient and plastic organ,” he said. “Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and reversible remodeling can occur throughout life.”

“Why should the stressed brain be prone to habit formation? Perhaps to help shunt as many behaviors as possible over to automatic pilot, the better to focus on the crisis at hand. Yet habits can become ruts, and as the novelist Ellen Glasgow observed, “The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”

It’s still August. Time to relax, rewind and remodel the brain.”

And here, the theory in practice! Utterly lovely.

Lutherans to Allow Sexually Active Gays as Clergy

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 21, 2009