21 Facts About Michael Merzenich

Michael Matthias Merzenich is an American neuroscientist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco.

Michael Merzenich took the sensory cortex maps developed by his predecessors and refined them using dense micro-electrode mapping techniques.

Michael Merzenich led the cochlear implant team at UCSF, which transferred its technology to Advanced Bionics, and their version is the Clarion cochlear implant.

Michael Merzenich collaborated with Bill Jenkins and Gregg Recanzone to demonstrate sensory maps are labile into adulthood in animals performing operant sensory tasks.

Michael Merzenich collaborated with Paula Tallal, Bill Jenkins, and Steve Miller to form the company Scientific Learning.

Michael Merzenich took two sabbaticals from UCSF, in 1997 and 2004.

Michael Merzenich is Chief Scientific Officer, and on the Board of Directors, at Posit Science.

Michael Merzenich attended the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon earning his Bachelor of Science in 1964.

Michael Merzenich left Johns Hopkins to conduct his postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin under Jerzy Rose.

Michael Merzenich earned his neurophysiology fellowship between 1968 and 1971.

Michael Merzenich left Wisconsin to join the faculty at UCSF as the only basic scientist in the clinical Otolaryngology department, head and neck surgery.

Michael Merzenich started with UCSF in 1971 as faculty member becoming full professor in 1980.

Michael Merzenich was Co-Director at the Coleman Memorial Laboratory where he conducted research on the cerebral cortex.

Michael Merzenich was the Francis A Sooy Chair of Otolaryngology, in the Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences at UCSF.

Michael Merzenich remains in the same department, now as a professor emeritus, retiring in 2007.

Michael Merzenich has helped to identify two distinct periods of brain plasticity: The Critical Period and the period of Adult Plasticity.

Dr James T Todd, a professor of psychology, has criticized Michael Merzenich for using the term "miraculous" to describe evidence allegedly supporting the rapid prompting method, claiming that scientific outliers are hard to analyze in the laboratory and replicate.

In May 1999, Michael Merzenich was honored by election into the National Academy of Sciences for his research on brain plasticity.

Michael Merzenich went on to be elected to the National Academy's Institute of Medicine in 2008, making him one of a very select few to have been elected to more than one of the National Academies.

Michael Merzenich's work is often covered in the popular press, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek.

Michael Merzenich has appeared on Sixty Minutes II, CBS Evening News and Good Morning America.