Back to search

Brain researcher lectures on Oct. 13

Dr. Michael Merzenich studies neuroplasticity – the brain's powerful ability to change itself and adapt – and investigates ways plasticity might be used to heal injured brains and enhance the skills in healthy ones.

He will talk about his work at California State University, Monterey Bay’s World Theater on Oct. 13, as the President’s Speaker Series continues.

Merzenich has studied how brains develop for more than three decades. His research has shown that the brain retains its ability to alter itself well into adulthood – suggesting that brains with injuries or disease might be able to recover function, even later in life. He has also explored the way the senses are mapped in regions of the brain and the way sensations teach the brain to recognize new patterns.

Merzenich is trying to bring the powerful plasticity of the brain into practical use through technologies and methods that harness it to improve learning. He founded Scientific Learning Corporation, which markets and distributes educational software for children based on models of brain plasticity. He is co-founder and chief science officer of Posit Science, which creates "brain training" software also based on his research.

That software, sold commercially under the names Brain Fitness Program and InSight, is supposed to strengthen memory, attention, language skills and visual-spatial abilities in aging adults. “This is the beginning of a revolution,” Merzrnich told The New York Times in June.

Studies have shown improvement in those who use the software. Some critics, however, are not convinced that the gains translate into long-term benefits that can be generalized to daily challenges such as remembering where the car is parked.

In the 1980s, Merzenich was on the team that invented the cochlear implant to restore hearing for the severely deaf.

Merzenich is professor emeritus of neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. He has published more than 200 articles, received numerous awards and prizes and holds more than 50 patents. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

The 7 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public. Reservations are strongly encouraged and can be made here or by calling the World Theater box office at 582-4580. Driving directions and a map of campus are available here.