Neurobiologist Carla Shatz poses the question of whether we will one day soon be able to make an old brain young? In exploring the question, she shares her groundbreaking research on how brain circuits are “tuned up” during critical periods of development, and how our visual system is inextricably tied to brain plasticity. These are some of the findings that she hopes will eventually inform the creation of a pill to rewire our brains to operate as they did when we were young.
Carla Shatz is the Sapp Family Provostial Professor, David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X and professor of biology and of neurobiology. She conducts research on how experiences change brain circuits during early critical periods of learning and development. Her work revealed that long before birth, the baby's brain is testing and validating neural circuits. Shatz's research has also revealed new and unexpected connections between the nervous and the immune systems. Shatz has served as president of the Society for Neuroscience, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the American Philosophical Society. She has received numerous honors and awards, and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge.
