Sitting in his bright Posit Science conference room that overlooks a particularly cinematic street corner near Union Square, Merzenich frequently segues quickly from complex scientific discussion to dry and witty - occasionally sarcastic - asides. It’s fun being around a brainiac that doesn’t take himself too seriously.” “I have spent more time looking into his eyes (doing multiple takes) than I have in my wife’s. “He is like a big kid that saw me both as a live science experiment and an adopted son,” Sampson wrote during an e-mail interview from Australia. San Francisco was used as a home base for the show. Sampson, who runs a successful advertising agency in Australia, says he’s been a Merzenich fan since his college years. In the first hour of “Hack My Brain,” Sampson takes an idea from “Soft-Wired” a step further, and builds an actual gym for his brain training. Sampson turned out to be a perfect partner. Much of Merzenich’s efforts now involve finding an audience that will listen to his findings, which are detailed in the 2013 book “Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life.” In the book, he advocates short intensive personalized brain-training exercises to help young people with learning disabilities, the elderly and middle-aged go-getters who just want to keep their edge. (Two of the brain-building exercises - the ones Sampson used on the show - are offered on the site for free.) Merzenich retired from UCSF in 2010 and is the chief scientific officer of San Francisco-based Posit Science, which runs the brain-training website Brain HQ. ![]() The 1970s research for cochlear implants, electronic devices that rebuild the sense of sound for deaf patients, included breakthroughs that gave much more credence to brain plasticity. ![]() “The overwhelming view was that the human brain was plastic when you were a baby, and then it was like the computer on your desk.” He was interested in the concept of brain plasticity early on, but few scientists believed in it. Merzenich, 72, studied at University of Portland and Johns Hopkins before moving to UCSF in 1971. It was about illustrating things that would really happen.” They continually reminded everybody that it wasn’t about exaggeration. “They were serious about doing this in an honest way. “One thing I loved about these guys is that they were scientifically rigorous,” Merzenich says. While channels such as TLC and Bravo have embraced more scripted reality, most of Science Channel’s shows remain grounded in education. but quickly learned that Sampson and his collaborators weren’t interested in fakery. Merzenich had his concerns about doing the show for the Australian Broadcasting Co. Merzenich acts as sort of a mentor in the first shows, an Obi-Wan to Sampson’s brainpower Luke Skywalker. The program follows Australian entrepreneur Todd Sampson as he conducts a number of experiments, tests and stunts (including a Houdini-style escape) in an attempt to quickly “better” himself, by making his mind a more efficient instrument. Merzenich will appear Friday night on “Hack My Brain,” a three-part documentary airing Friday on the Science Channel. ![]() It’s just so pessimistic and so far from the reality, because we’ve actually been constructed in a way that allows for continuous self-improvement.” “It’s not just a downhill passage in life. That they could be better and stronger next month as compared to now,” Merzenich says. They don’t realize that they’ve been given this great gift. But his passion for the concept of brain plasticity - the idea that the brain can rewire itself long after formative years are done - includes a willingness to be a bit of a proselytizer.
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