Merzenich, Michael
<p>Jul 19, 2009 10:14 AM  (DJCLINE.com  took photos of Mike and me)
 
BA Future salon talk on July 17, 2009.
called MIKE.  born 1942  (age 67)  prof emeritus, neuroscience.  UCSF .
basic and clinical science of hearing.  PhD at Hopkins.
 
I chat with him for 20 mins before his talk.  He really likes Ivan Diamond.
Mike lives in SF and in Sonoma with wife.
look at his blog.
 
The talk...
1) there are about 100k  neuroscientists and  over 200k  people involved in clinical neurology and
more than  100k articles per year.   prob. 40% of those are on BRAIN PLASTICITY.
 
I ask him...  how much of plasticity is due to traditional Hebb wiring... he says abt 30% and list other stuff...
glia, myelin,  other dendritic changes.
 
a lot of machinery devoted to silencing or attenuating irrelevant stuff is involved in learning.
 
His talk...
1)  what if neurosci presented a full and complete explanation of who we are??
2)  what if we KNEW the neuro basis of behavior (meaning in general ... not one indiv. person .. cannot do that... too complex.
3) what are our neuro weaknesses and failure modes?  (eg depression, schizo, autism)
4)  the neuro findings have great implication as to how human society should be organized...
now it is very poorly organized... not arranged for good health.
5)  are culture is exploding in an unbridled fashion;  ;this is thrusting us into dangeerous territory
(promoting addictive behavior,  sex, drugs etc) ... it is destroying the fabric of society and destroying the planet and
human health.
6)  We are not capable of controlling the CULTURE GENIE is out of the bottle and is controllinbg and destroying us.
 
BRAIN PLASTICITY.
 
photo:  new born baby... can do almost nothing...  just poop and suck milk;  must learn everything else.
 
photo:  10 yr old boy w soccer ball balanced on head... juggling it.
40% of  boys in Sao Paulo can do this (and almost no where else)  why?  they LEARNED IT.
if u c a kid in Palo Alto doing it he's prob from Sao Paulo.
they also speak Brazilian Portugues...  all learned.
brain changes in great detail
 
Plasticity is with us until we die!
 
He wants to drive brains in POSITIVE DIRECTIONS
 
great picture of Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel. young guys in their lab.
 
He loves WM JAMES... one of the greatest minds ever. (Jay Scolio also does)
 
He divides learning into arbitrary EPOCHS
 
EPOCH 1:
    brain establishes CONTROL of boy's limbs etc.
EPOCH 2:  acquires SKILLS
EPOCH 3:  Masters SKILLS of learning and skill acquisition.
 
in  detail  EPOCH 1:
acquire control of body:  bring something to mouth...  he shows  1.5 yr old with a giant spoon... holding
it near fulcrum.
also needs to create a world model.
 
rat's brain learns in detail and from its input creates repres of the world.
 
Baby creates an ideal processor of its native language...
no meaning until at least 9 months of age...  then  Mama.
 
Attentional contro:  selective attention is essential for learning... what to attend to, to accomplish your goals.
 
*
 
humans are not tied to a specific environ.
early exposure shapes our mental machinery.
human beings are ADAPTABLE to wide var. of goals, environments.
 
EPOCH 2:  cute baby pic:  his grand dtr
older brains gain control as it masters skill after skill.
 
if it works, SAVE IT... that was successful.
 
2 yr old with big spoon vs age 6 with great spoon skill.
 
DOPAMINE:  goal pursuit and rewards...  that was a good one.
 
slowly YOU are created.
 
all these skills are CENTERED ON YOU.  self reference.
 
Billions of learned assoc btwn the growing self and its unique world.
 
the SELF is created in your lifetime.
 
modern brain are much difft than our ancestors.
pic: INdians with acorns.
 
1) brain is inherently selfish.
2) what u do and what u did is what you are.
 
3) culture matters a lot.
4)  what we do these days is tot. difft from what we were designed for.
5) we have serious failure modes, eg depression.
every brain is subj to addicvtion.
 
our society is creating great social devaince.
 
black kids:  being aggressive is good in their own society but NOT when they go to school... they get sent to jail.
 
1 in 30 boys in under the care of the court.
 
In his lab:  can screw up a rate... give it a bad childhood and stressful stimuli;  life of abuse...
however, everything is reversible.
 
Norway rate...  usu dies at age 3-4;
 
old brains... things going to hell.
 
But almost all the elder changes are reversible.
 
rats with complex environ  (like Marian Diamond exp)... restores vigor.
 
BDNF,...
 
His products...  present a challenge ramp  (per Matt Bell)
 
BPI  brain plasticity institute.
 
Posit Brain Inst.
 
must have intense repition and be unmasterable.
 
should be used not just for remediation but by every kid and poss every adult.
 
Competition fromn Asia will drive it... Jpan, Korea.
 
brain respresnts info in a noisy way... her tries to sharpen low level input.
 
Program is NOT polite....  need to push the users.
 
as we age...  knowledge increases but ability to learn slows down... evn among prfessionsls.
but can restore it in part.
 
in a 65 yr old...  they are sampling audit input at low frequency  and they miss a lot.
normal speech they miss at least 5% of words.  If you speed up speech by 25% they miss it ALL.
Young people, no prob.
 
young brain does faster sampling.
 
old peole have degrade aural speech memory.
 
all habits assoc with aging are partially reversible.
 
10 hrs of training with his programs can open up vision from center to peripery.
 
driving programs decr. accidnets by 50%.
 
Conan Ball studies
 
AAA:  DriveSharp  will be selling these for $99.
Allstate will give it away.
there is no better way to spend 8-10 ours.
 
cutting umbilical cord early may result in 2 mins of cerebral ischemia in babies...
might be v ery harmful, could be causative factor in autism.
 
chemical safety regulations are backwards...  the burden of proof should be
on showing that a molecule is safe, rather than that it is dangerous.
All we screen for is mutagenesis;  eg, no screening for brain effects.
huge problem with chems in the environment.
 
we are paving over the world... deskilling people in terms of walking and balance.
 
Merzenich shows a grat list of all of societies problems.
eg that our economy depends on increased consupmtion.
 
20 yrs ago there were 40k bipolar kids;  now there are  1M and many are getting major drugs.
 
DL Clince recommends the SDForum to me... software developers forum.
 
 
 
 
 
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