Hyperneuroplasticity as the Umbrella Neurodivergence for Deep Neural Adaptation

By Dr. Patty Gently on July 8, 2025

Bright Insight Support Network founder and president Dr. Patricia Gently supports gifted and twice-exceptional adults in their own autopsychotherapy through identity exploration, structured reflection, and alignment with inner values. A writer, educator, and 2e adult, Dr. Patty centers depth, integrity, and complexity in all aspects of her work.

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Hyperneuroplasticity as the Umbrella Neurodivergence for Deep Neural Adaptation

At this point, most folks have seen and enjoyed Katy Higgins Lee's Venn Diagram highlighting trait overlap between autism, ADHD, and giftedness. And certainly, many folks wonder if the difference between the three is as neat and tidy as a list of diagnostic criteria or an IQ cutoff. Certainly not. What do these neurodivergences all have in common, though, beyond that center space in the overlapping circles? Hyperneuroplasticity.

Giftedness, Autism, ADHD Venn Diagram by K. Higgins Lee, 2023

The term hyperneuroplasticity was first introduced to me by Jön Solomon Oldman (2025). A contemporary philosopher and independent thinker, he offered it in the context of giftedness, naming the deep, complex, and intense adaptability many gifted individuals experience. As I considered and explored this further, I began mapping other neurotypes that shared this same core orientation. Autism, ADHD, gifted neurodivergence, and trauma-responsive systems all seemed to have it in common. And it became clear to me that this was the missing link I had been searching for. From the moment I encountered it, I recognized its capacity to explain not just isolated traits or diagnoses, but the underlying developmental patterns shared by many neurodivergent individuals.

For years, we've been handed diagnostic fragments. Each label attempts to describe a set of traits, challenges, or neurological styles. Yet beneath the variation, there is a shared thread running through many of these lived experiences, one that rarely gets named directly: a nervous system that adapts quickly, deeply, and often at great cost.

This article introduces a unifying lens: hyperneuroplasticity as an umbrella neurodivergence for some other labels we often identify as somehow linked. Rather than viewing neurotypes like autism, ADHD, or giftedness as entirely separate, however, this framing suggests they are expressions of a core neurobiological orientation toward heightened responsiveness and internal reorganization. That is, they are all manifestations of a shared underlying trait: an unusually high capacity for neural adaptation, symbolic integration, and cross-system transformation.

Defining Hyperneuroplasticity

So, what is Hyperneuroplasticity? If you look it up, there is no clear definition for it, though those in the field of neuropsychology and the world of giftedness may immediately understand what it is. But let's break it down.

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s dynamic ability to rewire itself by creating, adjusting, and reinforcing neural connections in response to internal experiences and external inputs (Diniz & Crestani, 2023). Once thought of as limited to early development, neuroplasticity is now understood as a lifelong process that underlies learning, memory formation, and adaptive functioning throughout the lifespan (Parisi et al., 2019).

Hyperplasticity is a term you do not hear much outside of research, but at its core, it just means a brain that changes fast and deeply, one that forms and strengthens connections intensely and doesn’t prune them away as quickly. In autism research, this shows up as rapid learning, strong sensory impressions, and a tendency to become overstimulated (Wilson et al., 2017). The Intense World Theory (Markram & Markram, 2010) suggests it’s not a deficit at all, but a state of amplified function. Heightened attention, memory, sensitivity, and perception from a system taking in everything, all the time. That kind of intensity can lead to withdrawal, rigidity, or overwhelm... and brilliance.

Linking these terms together to understand the extent of the experience, hyperneuroplasticity refers to a whole-system, neurodevelopmental orientation toward comparatively rapid, deep, and enduring neural reconfiguration in response to internal and external stimuli. It goes beyond generalized brain malleability to denote a qualitative and quantitative intensification of plastic potential. Individuals with hyperneuroplastic profiles do not merely change. They transform. And they often reorganize neural, cognitive, affective, and somatosensory domains in response to meaning-laden stimuli.

This heightened neural responsiveness often presents as:

Deep, nonlinear learning with minimal repetition, frequently bypassing stepwise instruction

Symbolic synthesis and rapid pattern formation, especially in high-complexity, emotionally salient environments

Cross-modal processing, where cognition, emotion, and perception intertwine (e.g., synesthetic tendencies or emotion-cognition coupling)

High relational and contextual attunement, including adaptive or maladaptive reshaping of identity in response to social dynamics

Persistent integration of internal states with external stimuli, leading to enduring reorganization of affective and interpretive frameworks

Where traditional neuroplasticity reflects a capacity for adaptation, hyperneuroplasticity describes a propensity for transformation. It is developmental, constitutional, and frequently embodied, often found in neurotypes marked by intensity, sensitivity, and depth-oriented processing. And rather than a deficit or excess, hyperneuroplasticity may represent a distinctive biological substrate for symbolic, intuitive, and identity-linked forms of knowing, making it a vital construct for understanding certain neurodivergent experiences.

The Many Faces of Hyperneuroplasticity

The following entries represent diverse expressions of hyperneuroplasticity as they appear in clinical, developmental, and lived experience. While most are well-supported by neuroscience, theory, and observed adaptive complexity, a few are more interpretive in nature. **Specifically, schizotypal and schizoaffective profiles and bipolarity are included based on phenomenological alignment and symbolic-intuitive expression, rather than established consensus around plasticity markers. Their inclusion reflects the evolving nature of this framework and the intent to destigmatize divergent experiences of reorganization and depth while opening up a conversation about intelligence.

When we place hyperneuroplasticity at the center, a wide range of diagnostic profiles begin to make more sense as variations of this core trait:

Autism reflects a whole-system orientation toward immersive sensory-symbolic processing and nonlinear integration. Far from being a deficit, it represents a form of adaptive depth, where perception, identity, and environment blur into a constantly updating internal schema. The overwhelm associated with autism is not a symptom of fragility. It is a fidelity to unfiltered experience. Research increasingly links autism to elevated neuroplastic responsiveness, with studies showing enhanced long-term potentiation, increased dendritic spine density, and reduced synaptic pruning, all features suggesting a brain highly sensitive to environmental input. These traits may help explain both early, domain-specific strengths and a tendency toward sensory or emotional saturation. The observed mechanisms, amplified responsiveness, extended developmental sensitivity, and dense network entanglement, mirror its core features.

ADHD can be seen as a form of cognitive dynamism, a nervous system tuned for scanning, shifting, and rapidly seeking patterns and novelty. Research increasingly supports elevated neuroplastic responsiveness in ADHD, including atypical dopamine regulation, altered synaptic pruning, and increased sensitivity to reward-based learning. These traits may underlie both the distractibility and the generative ideation often seen in ADHD profiles. The mechanisms of hyperneuroplasticity, such as rapid reactivity, functional flexibility, and system-wide adaptation, align with it.

Gifted (or galvanic) neurodivergence and twice-exceptionality reflect systems of accelerated abstraction and heightened symbolic synthesis. These individuals often perceive patterns and assign meaning before they can consciously articulate the system, adapting through internal reorganization in response to environmental demands. Compensation is also common, with gifted individuals frequently developing advanced strategies to work around sensory, cognitive, or executive function challenges, sometimes masking underlying difficulties. Twice-exceptional profiles show how complexity becomes a terrain for creative rerouting, revealing the nervous system’s capacity for flexibility, precision, and persistence without assuming deficit or disorder.

Complex PTSD and Developmental Trauma may illustrate the deep cost of hyperneuroplasticity when safety is absent. These systems do not merely react. They restructure. Memory, identity, sensory filtering, and relational interpretation all shift to accommodate the felt demand to survive. This is not dysfunction, however. This is deep adaptation under duress. That said, this sort of response to or product of trauma does not happen to everyone who endures difficult situations, leading us to wonder if the hyperneuroplastic are more prone to such diagnostic labels. This is particularly true since trauma-induced diagnoses are not innate like most other hyponeuroplastic conditions. This is a question for later exploration.

Dissociative Disorders embody plasticity at the level of selfhood. When inner coherence cannot be maintained in the face of overwhelming experience, the system learns to segment, reassign, and recontextualize memory, emotion, and identity. Dissociation is not just escape, in such situations. Dissociation at this level is a compensatory defense and structured divergence within a hyperplastic frame.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is a condition in which individuals experience neurological symptoms, such as seizures, weakness, movement disorders, or sensory disturbances, that are not caused by structural damage to the brain, though they arise from altered brain function. In FND, emotional, sensory, and motor systems become entangled through symbolic or unconscious learning processes. These responses are real, not imagined or feigned, and reflect deeply patterned neural adaptations shaped by lived experience. Rather than signaling damage, FND reflects the brain’s profound ability to encode and express distress, meaning, or protection through the body itself.

Synesthesia, though not a diagnosis, is a vivid expression of cross-modal symbolic plasticity. It reflects stable, durable links between sensory systems, formed through early or ongoing neural convergence. Far from random, these associations reveal the brain’s capacity to integrate and represent experience in layered, non-linear forms.

Schizotypal and Schizoaffective Profiles** may show what happens when hyperneuroplasticity extends into symbolic saturation. These systems seek connection and coherence through elevated patterning and emotional-symbolic binding, even when those patterns diverge from shared reality. It is not a break from meaning. It is a flood of it.

Bipolarity**, particularly in individuals with high emotional insight, creative fluency, or symbolic thinking, may reflect a system marked by intense reconfiguration in response to internal and external meaning states. While this neurodivergence is often viewed through a lens of instability or disorder, reframing bipolarity within a hyperneuroplastic model reveals a different possibility: a brain that adapts with unusual intensity to affective, relational, and existential shifts. The cycles themselves may seem maladaptive, while also representing a system trying to restore coherence through deep emotional restructuring.

None of these are random. Each is a specific shape the hyperneuroplastic system can take, depending on context, resilience, trauma exposure, cultural expectations, and developmental support.

From Fractured Labels to Systemic Coherence

Viewing these profiles as discrete may help with access to services, validation, and community. Yet it also creates artificial boundaries and theoretical fragmentation. Hyperneuroplasticity provides an integrative framework that centers process over pathology, explains cross-diagnostic commonalities (e.g., sensory overwhelm, emotional intensity, symbolic depth), and accounts for identity fluidity and relational adaptation as core features rather than comorbidities. It also highlights why so many individuals live between labels, or outgrow them, or find that multiple diagnoses fail to capture the essence of their experience. If hyperneuroplasticity is the through-line, then diagnosis becomes a snapshot of how a system is adapting under particular pressures, not a fixed identity.

The Developmental Cost

Of course, hyperneuroplasticity is not inherently positive. It can be awe-inspiring in its creativity and resilience, and devastating in its volatility. The same system that encodes deep meaning can also encode deep wounding. The same adaptability that produces intuitive leaps can also produce fragmentation and confusion under stress. This is not a romantic or reductive model and insists on nuance.

Hyperneuroplastic systems tend to learn through imprint, unlike more syntonic systems that may rely on repetition. This means formative experiences, whether nourishing or traumatic, get absorbed quickly and systemically. A sharp look, an unpredictable loss, or chronic misattunement can enter the system as more than memory; they can reconfigure perception, identity, and behavior. Over time, without safety and integration, these systems may bend toward dysregulation. And this dysregulation is not a sign of defect or disease. It exists because of a tendency towards adaptation without the much needed support to maintain it.

A Different Path Forward

Recognizing hyperneuroplasticity as the umbrella neurodivergence offers a way to shift from deficit models to developmental ones. It also helps us create trauma-informed, complexity-honoring support systems while understanding identity as a flexible, plastic phenomenon that adapts to meaning and environment.

This framework invites us to ask better questions: not “What is wrong with this person?" but “What has this nervous system learned to do in order to survive, connect, and make sense of the world?" And perhaps more radically: “What might this system be capable of, if understood and supported on its own terms?" Answering that not only supports neurodivergence. It reimagines the purpose of development itself.

**Edited on 7/13 to add:

Recently, I wrote a blog post introducing the term hyperneuroplasticity to offer an umbrella term for some related neurodivergences and as a way to rethink traits often seen in neurodivergences such as autism, ADHD, cPTSD, and giftedness. Some asked for something more grounded in empirical research. Needy, Needy!!! (lol though... I love accuracy and rigor.)

In the attached paper below, I offer findings from neuroscience, imaging, and neuroimmunology to frame hyperplasticity as a shared mechanism across divergent developmental experiences, where the goal is to offer a dimensional lens that accounts for both the cognitive intensity and regulatory vulnerability that often co-occur (rather than pathologizing).

If you're interested in the science behind sensitive, fast-adapting, context-shaped brains, and the reasoning for the hyperneurodiversity framework I'm exploring, this might be worth your time. And thank you for the push.

Hyperneuroplasticity as a Transdiagnostic Framework_ Neural Amplification Across Autism, A.

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