Elkhonon Goldberg (born 1946) is a

neuropsychologist Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...

and cognitive neuroscientist known for his work in hemispheric specialization and the "novelty-routinization" theory.

Biography

Goldberg studied at

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

with the great neuropsychologist

Alexander Luria Alexander Romanovich Luria (russian: Алекса́ндр Рома́нович Лу́рия, p=ˈlurʲɪjə; 16 July 1902 – 14 August 1977) was a Soviet neuropsychologist, often credited as a father of modern neuropsychology. He develope ...

and moved to the United States in 1974. He is currently a Clinical Professor of Neurology at New York University School of Medicine, Diplomate of The American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Neuropsychology, and Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of SharpBrains, an online brain fitness center. He offers post-doctoral training in Neuropsychology at

Fielding Graduate University Fielding Graduate University (previously Fielding Graduate Institute and The Fielding Institute) is a private graduate-level university in Santa Barbara, California. It offers postgraduate and doctoral studies mainly in psychology, education, an ...

. Elkhonon Goldberg is the Founding Director of Luria Neuroscience Institute (LNI), an organization founded with the purpose of advancing research and disseminating knowledge about the brain and the mind. He describes himself as an atheist "with agnostic tendencies".

Scientific work

At Moscow State University, Goldberg studied psychology and mathematics and was among the early proponents of the discipline known today as computational neuroscience. In the United States Goldberg's work has been more clinical in nature. His research has focused on the function of the

frontal lobes The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove betwe ...

, hemispheric specialization,

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...

, cognitive aging, and general theory of functional cortical organization. Among the early critics of the fashionable notion of neocortical modularity, he introduced the notion of "cognitive gradient" to capture the distributed and emergent properties of functional cortical organization. Goldberg's work on frontal lobe functions includes the discovery of the "reticulo-frontal disconnection" syndrome, functional lateralization and gender differences in the

prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA ...

. His work on memory includes the description of relatively pure

retrograde amnesia In neurology, retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past. It is caused by an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, ...

without

anterograde amnesia In neurology, anterograde amnesia is the inability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact ...

, which in turn has led to the elucidation of the role of

brain stem The brainstem (or brain stem) is the posterior stalk-like part of the brain that connects the cerebrum with the spinal cord. In the human brain the brainstem is composed of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. The midbrain is co ...

arousal Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain, which mediates wakefulness, th ...

mechanisms in memory. In clinical practice, Goldberg was among the early proponents of " cognitive fitness," purporting to harness the effects of lifelong

neuroplasticity Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it p ...

to delay and even reverse the effects of cognitive aging. First introduced by Michael Merzenich, the concept has gained the support of a number of leading neuroscientists. Nonetheless, it remains controversial and further research is required to validate it. Goldberg is an author of a number of scientific journal articles and book chapters, as well as three books: ''Contemporary Neuropsychology and the Legacy of Luria; The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind;'' and ''The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older''.

Novelty-routinization theory

His work on hemispheric specialization culminated in the "novelty-routinization" theory positing that (for the predominantly right-handed population) the two cerebral hemispheres are differentially involved in processing novel, unknown information (the right hemisphere) and processing in terms of stable pattern-recognition devices for known situations of mental routine (the left hemisphere). As for left-handers and ambidextrals, Goldberg indicates that the two hemispheres are less differentiated in function and structure. For these individuals there may be instances in which the left hemisphere takes the role of novelty processing and the right the routine processing. Specifically, the right hemisphere favors the "heteromodal association cortex" while the left favors the "modality-specific association cortex", and both are engaged in complex information processing. The latter deals solely with processing information arriving from individual sensory systems, such as visual, auditory, and sensory ones. This kind of cortex, favoring more local connections between adjacent cortical regions, "dismantles the world around us to separate representations. ... think of an object in a three-dimensional space projected onto the ''x'', ''y'', ''z'' coordinates...". On the other hand, the heteromodal association cortex, favoring distant inter-cortical connections, ''integrates'' information arriving from sensory channels, or puts "the synthetic picture of the multimedia world around us back together." Goldberg likens these differences in connectivity thus: the left hemisphere is like a fleet of taxicabs that traverses short town-like distances while the right is like a fleet of airplanes that traverses large continental distances.Goldberg, Elkhonon, ''The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older'', Gotham (February 16, 2006), pp. 195-196 The novelty-routinization theory incorporates the more traditional distinction between verbal and nonverbal functions as a special case, but is more dynamic in nature, allows for evolutionary continuities, and provides a neurodevelopmental framework.

Books

* Elkhonon Goldberg. ''Contemporary Neuropsychology and the Legacy of Luria'', Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990. * Elkhonon Goldberg. ''The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind'', NY: Oxford University Press, 2001; paperback 2002. * Elkhonon Goldberg. ''The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older'', NY: Penguin, 2005; paperback 2006. UK edition: Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2005. * Elkhonon Goldberg. ''The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World'', NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. * Elkhonon Goldberg. ''Creativity: The Human Brain in the Age of Innovation', NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Footnotes

External links