![]() His sometimes awkward straddling of the corporate and nonprofit worlds has placed him squarely in the middle of a heated debate over the issue of conflict of interest in the research world. Merzenich may also be its most prolific entrepreneur, as he shuttles between his university lab and the two companies he has cofounded: the Scientific Learning Corporation in Oakland and Posit Science in San Francisco. “He’s the father of neuroplasticity research,” says UCLA research psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, who has written widely on the topic. The genial, stocky Merzenich is this era’s foremost apostle. Although these changes are far less striking than those in young brains, the potential has inspired a burst of optimism about the human condition and launched a new era of neuroscience. ![]() ![]() Over the past two decades, however, a wave of studies-including Merzenich’s own seminal research on monkeys-has shown that adult brains can also significantly change, producing new and modified interneuronal connections and even a limited number of new neurons. Scientists assumed that adult brains were entrenched in their operating modes. Back then, it referred mainly to the major developmental leaps seen in very young brains. The concept of brain plasticity first came into vogue in the 1960s and 1970s. “We’re going to revolutionize the way an older person looks at the end of life,” he vows. Merzenich’s faith in harnessing plasticity could change the way we think about mental health. The technique relies on a process called plasticity-the brain’s innate capacity to reshape itself and even increase its complexity throughout a lifetime, depending on experience. Merzenich, a neuroscience professor at the University of California at San Francisco, aspires to “fix” brains with a series of innovative computer programs that he and his colleagues have designed, most notably his new Brain Fitness Program to help buff up gray matter that has turned flabby with age. Now a graying 64, he hopes merely to reverse the toll of aging on the brain and cure schizophrenia. “It’s the kind of thing you think about when you’re young and dumb.” Four decades later, he has scaled back his ambitions. “I was interested in the genesis of the self,” he says. In his twenties, Mike Merzenich dreamed of mapping the neurobiology of the soul.
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