Michael Matthias Merzenich[2] (/ˈmɜːrzənɪk/ MURR-zə-nik;[3] born 1942 in Lebanon, Oregon) is an American neuroscientist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco.
[1][13] This was based on Fast ForWord software they co-invented that produces improvements in children's language skills that has been related to the magnitude of their temporal processing impairments prior to training,[14] though the program's effectiveness is disputed.
In 1968 he earned his PhD in Physiology at Johns Hopkins Medical School in the lab of Vernon Mountcastle, studying neural coding of stimulus magnitude in the hairy skin.
[21] He left Wisconsin to join the faculty at UCSF as the only basic scientist in the clinical Otolaryngology department, head and neck surgery.
In February 2004, Merzenich gave a TED talk titled “Growing evidence of brain plasticity” which outlines the basic findings of his research.
[24][25] Understanding how the brain can re-wire itself has allowed Merzenich, Tallal, and other colleagues to develop strategies intended to remediate individuals with any speech, language, and reading deficits.
[25][26] Through research in experience dependent learning with non-human primates, neurophysiologists including Merzenich have demonstrated that neuroplasticity remains through adulthood.
[24][25][26][27] Further studies with monkeys suggested that the Hebbian learning principles that drive neuroplasticity can be used to treat learning-language impaired children.
[25][26][27] 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.
Along with Peter B. Delahunt, Joseph L. Hardy, Henry W. Mahncke, and Donald Richards hold the patent for visual emphasis for cognitive training exercises.