The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

by Norman Doidge

I talked with him shortly after he completed the series of brain exercises Merzenich’s team developed with Posit Science. Dr. Karansky hadn’t seen cognitive decline, though he adds, “My handwriting was good but not as good as it was before.” He simply hoped to keep his brain fit. He began the auditory memory program in August 2005 by inserting a CD into his computer, and found the exercises “sophisticated and entertaining.” They required him to determine if sounds were sweeping up in frequency or down, to pick the order in which he heard certain syllables, identify similar sounds, and listen to stories and answer questions about them—all in order to sharpen brain maps and stimulate the mechanisms that regulate brain plasticity. He worked on the exercises for an hour and a quarter, three times a week, for three months.