  Stroke is one of the main causes of human disabilities. Experimental
observations indicate that several mechanisms are activated during the recovery
of functional activity after a stroke. Here we unveil how the brain recovers by
explaining the role played by three mechanisms: Plastic adaptation,
hyperexcitability and synaptogenesis. We consider two different damages in a
neural network: A diffuse damage that simply causes the reduction of the
effective system size and a localized damage, a stroke, that strongly alters
the spontaneous activity of the system. Recovery mechanisms observed
experimentally are implemented both separately and in a combined way.
Interestingly, each mechanism contributes to the recovery to a limited extent.
Only the combined application of all three together is able to recover the
spontaneous activity of the undamaged system. This explains why the brain
triggers independent mechanisms, whose cooperation is the fundamental
ingredient for the system recovery.
