Michael Merzenich, PhD
Distinguished BrainHealth Collaborator
Dr. Michael Merzenich believes we can truly change how our society manages brain health. Novel, small-scale cognitive training programs have yielded exciting breakthroughs – showing it is possible to improve cognitive performance and real-world function in healthy adults as well as people with clinically significant cognitive disorders. The next step is to get this out of the laboratory and into the lives of people.
A leading pioneer in brain plasticity research, Dr. Merzenich has published nearly 300 articles in leading peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous recognitions – including the Russ Prize, Ipsen Prize, Zülch Prize, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award, Purkinje Medal, and the Kavli Prize (one of the world’s top neuroscience honors). His work has been highlighted in hundreds of books about the brain, learning, rehabilitation and plasticity.
Dr. Michael Merzenich talks about neuroplasticity and the capacity of the brain to change no matter your age. Previously the thinking was that brains mature and the wiring is fixed for life, but that is not the case as Dr. Merzenich points out.
“We each have a unique machine (brain) that is just made for us,“ shares Dr. Merzenich. It turns out that the human brain is not fixed for life. As he points out, the ability to change is a life-long process.
Everything we know, think and feel—everything!—comes from our brains. But consciousness, our private sense of inner awareness, remains a mystery. Brain activities—spiking of neuronal impulses, sloshing of neurochemicals—are not at all the same thing as sights, sounds, smells, emotions. How on earth can our inner experiences be explained in physical terms?