The aging brain can learn and grow.  This new conventional wisdom—based on the latest neurophysiological research—replaces the old conventional wisdom (which was that the brain has only a fixed number a cells set at birth and that older people cannot learn with the flexibility of younger people).

So much for conventional wisdom of any kind.  Once, during an illness, one of my doctors gave me a 500 page book on “Psychopharmocology”—a technical text on the effects of drugs on the brain.  I read it as best I could—it was quite technical—and returned it to my doctor.

“Interesting!” I said, “what … Read More