Neuroscientist & Author
Dr. Sydney Ceruto, PhD
Real-Time Neuroplasticity™
Dr. Ceruto works one-on-one with you on a reaction while it is happening. Each time you respond in a new way, your brain rewires a little.
PhD in Behavioral & Cognitive Neuroscience (NYU) · Author, The Dopamine Code (Simon & Schuster)
Why the pattern keeps winning
The conversation turns, and the words are out of your mouth before you have weighed them. The pressure lands, and you go quiet, or you agree to something you meant to refuse. Later, somewhere calm, the better move is obvious.
Sometimes it runs quieter: worry that builds before anything has happened, or focus that slips in the middle of important work and will not come back.
A reaction you have repeated for years runs on a well-worn circuit in your brain. It can fire before thinking catches up, and every repeat makes it more automatic.
This is not a willpower failure. It is a timing problem.
You may have discussed it many times, or read everything you could find about it. You can understand a pattern and still watch it run. By the time you think it over, the reaction may already be hard to change again.
What happens right after a reaction
Right after a reaction, the brain circuit behind it may for a short time be easier to change. When that short time passes, the reaction is hard to change again.
- The reaction happens
- A short time when it can change
- It sets again
- Each time it runs its course, the brain circuit behind it gets a little stronger.
- This is where Dr. Ceruto works: inside the window, meaning that short time when the reaction can change. She steps in and redirects the reaction toward a new response. Each time the new response runs, the brain circuit behind it gets stronger.
Clients have direct access to her by text or phone while a reaction is happening, often within minutes. She works with only a few clients at a time.
How the work rewires a reaction
Mapping how your brain runs the reaction
Dr. Ceruto starts by learning how the reaction runs: what sets it off, what your brain does next, and what past experience it draws on.
She looks for where your reaction is bigger or different than the situation calls for.
Reaching her while it happens
You text or call her while the reaction is happening, or soon after, and she responds.
If you can’t talk right then, you can ask for a time later that day or the next day.
Changing the brain circuit while it may be open
After a reaction fires, there may be a window in which the brain circuit behind it is more open to change.
She steps in with you and redirects the reaction to a different response before the old one locks back in.
Tracking what still sets it off
She tracks which triggers still set the reaction off, and in what situations, and adjusts the work to match.
Rewiring the old reaction
Each time the pattern comes back and you use the new response, your brain itself changes a little.
The new response gets stronger with use, and the old one weakens as you use it less.
The two programs differ in length and in how much of your life they cover.
The science of the open window
Your brain keeps reorganizing its own connections in response to experience. In one widely cited study, London taxi drivers, who spend years learning the city’s streets, had a larger part of the brain area that handles memory and finding your way than people who did not drive taxis. The longer they had driven, the larger it tended to be.
Research on memory adds a second idea. When a memory is called up, it can return for a time to a state in which it can be changed, before it settles again.
Real-Time Neuroplasticity™ (the ™ marks it as her own named method) is Dr. Ceruto’s approach, using that idea for the reactions in your everyday life. She built her method on one difference: talking about a reaction at your next appointment, after the feelings have settled, is not the same as working on it while it is happening and emotions are high. That is why you can text or call her while a reaction is happening.
Common questions
Do I need to know when the window is open?
No. You do not need to know when that time is. Clients have direct access to Dr. Sydney Ceruto by text or phone, and reading the reaction, what set it off and what it is drawing on, is her part of the work.
Why does the timing of the work matter?
Because any window for change would come with the reaction itself. By the time your next appointment comes, the reaction may already be hard to change again. Dr. Sydney Ceruto’s method places the work while a pattern may still be active, using an idea from memory research for everyday reactions: a reaction may be easier to change soon after it happens.
Will the change last, or will the old pattern come back?
No one can promise that a pattern will never return, and Dr. Sydney Ceruto does not. The aim is for the new response, practiced each time the pattern fires, to lock in the way the old one did. Old patterns can still surface under strain, and when they do, the work picks up from what she has already learned about them.
Does this apply to relationships and family, not just work?
Yes. A pattern often shows up in more than one part of life. The tension before a hard conversation at home can run on the same circuit as the tension before a high-stakes meeting. Dr. Sydney Ceruto works wherever the pattern fires, at work, in a relationship or in a family.
Bring the pattern you want to change
Start with one private hour on the phone with Dr. Ceruto. She tells you what she thinks is driving the reaction, and you decide from there whether to go further.
Book Your ConsultationDr. Sydney Ceruto, PhD, Neuroscientist & Author, MindLAB Neuroscience
- Dr. Ceruto holds a PhD in Behavioral & Cognitive Neuroscience (NYU) and Master’s degrees in Clinical Psychology and Business Psychology (Yale University).
- Lecturer, Wharton Executive Development Program, University of Pennsylvania.
- Dr. Ceruto is the author of The Dopamine Code (Simon & Schuster, June 2026).
- Dr. Ceruto brings 26+ years of founding and leading MindLAB Neuroscience to her practice.