Elkhonon Goldberg
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Elkhonon Goldberg is a neuropsychologist and cognitive neuroscientist. He was born in Riga, Latvia in 1946, studied at Moscow State University with the great neuropsychologist Alexander Luria and moved to the United States in 1974.
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, hemispheric specialization, memory, cognitive aging, and general theory of functional cortical organization. Goldberg has been among the early critics of the fashionable notion of neocortical modularity. Instead, he introduced the notion of "cognitive gradient" to capture the distributed and emergent properties of functional cortical organization. His work on hemispheric specialization culminated in the "novelty-routinization" theory positing that the two cerebral hemispheres are differentially involved in processing novel information (the right hemisphere)and processing in terms of well established cognitive routines (the left hemisphere). 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. 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. His work on memory incudes the description of relatively pure retrograde amnesia without anterograde amnesia, which in turn has lead to the elucidation of the role of brain stem arousal mechanisms in memory.
On a more practical level, Goldberg has been among the early proponents of "cognitive fitness," harnessing the effects of life-long neuroplasticity to delay and even reverse the effects of cognitive aging.
Goldberg is an author of a number of scientific journal articles and book chapters, as well as of 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.
[edit] References
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.
Interview with Elkhonon Goldberg, Ph.D.
