I initiated this blog for two reasons. First, I sought to provide neuroscience-related information to care-givers and to citizens who might benefit from a brain plasticity-informed perspective. There is an ongoing revolution in brain science that bears powerful implications for our understanding of human neurological and psychiatric impairments and disease, and that informs us about a broad new class of ‘organic’ strategies for ameliorating or overcoming them. That science tells us, with increasing power and efficiency, how to use the resources of our marvelously plastic brain to overcome developmental impairments or adult-acquired losses, through driving the brain via intensive training, in functionally prophylactic, correcting and rejuvenating directions.
From the outset, I had a second, important, unstated goal. I’ve been writing a book (still untitled) that I shall deliver to my publisher (John Wiley) at the end of this month. The subject of this book — brain plasticity through a lifetime, as it informs us about successful aging — shall also be the subject of a PBS television special that shall be (tentatively) initially aired as a part of many local stations’ winter pledge drives, in December, 2007.
My goal is to have substantial scientific backup for this book published at this site. In a sense, I’ll publish it twice: One set of chapters will be reported in the book. A companion set of chapters, summarizing, annotating and more completely discussing the scientific groundings of the main claims of the book, will be published here, as a series of about 30 blog entries. The objective over a 2-3 year period, is to continue to elaborate this blog content and to write a short series of such books (3 more are on my schedule), to provide a brain science perspective about normal brain development, function, aging, and disease, and about brain plasticity-based therapeutics designed to address a wide variety of problems that variously limit the achievements of children and adults in need of help.
When this ‘backgrounder’ information about the book appears at this site, we’ll stow it at a place where you can easily avoid it! On the other hand, if the book captures your interests to the extent that you want to read or understand more about its stroll through the neuroscience of brain plasticity through a lifetime, if you’re up for it, I’ll try to guide you to that more detailed science and more complete understanding that shall be published at the second book version, at this site.
