Given how influential Alexander Luria’s work was and still is on many topics we discuss often here at SharpBrains.com, let us highlight the upcoming Luria Congress/ Moscow International Congress (yes, in Moscow) dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Alexander Romanovich Luria’s birth. “The year 2012 marks 110 years of the birth of Alexander Luria (1902-1977). To commemorate the life and scientific achievements of this world-renowned psychologist and the founder of the Russian neuropsychology, Moscow Lomonosow State University, in collaboration with the The Burdenko Neurosurgery Institute (where the first Russian neuropsychological laboratory was open) are pleased to announce Moscow International Congress. The Congress will be held in Moscow, from 20 to 22 September, 2012.”

To Learn More about this event, Click Here.

To Learn More about Alexander Luria, his mentor Lev Vygostky, and their influence on current applied neuroscience, you may want to read this conversation with Elkhonon Goldberg a few years back:

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): Elkhonon, maybe we could start with Vygot­sky. At one of my Stan­ford classes, I became fas­ci­nated by his the­ory of learn­ing. Which links into mod­ern neu­ropsy­chol­ogy.

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg (EG): Vygot­sky pro­posed that learn­ing requires inter­nal­iza­tion. And that inter­nal­iza­tion equals, lit­er­ally, a change in the brain of the learner. Of course there weren advanced neu­roimag­ing tech­niques those days, so sci­en­tists could only spec­u­late about what hap­pened in healthy brains. But they could care­fully ana­lyze what hap­pened with patients who had suf­fered any kind of seri­ous brain prob­lem, from strokes to trau­matic brain injury. And this is how neu­ropsy­chol­ogy was born: Alexan­der Luria, Vygot­sky dis­ci­ple, and my own men­tor, was com­mis­sioned to help reha­bil­i­tate Russ­ian sol­diers with brain injuries dur­ing WWII. This pro­vided invalu­able clin­i­cal mate­r­ial for under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms of the healthy brain. Much of mod­ern cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science rests its foun­da­tion in Luria’s work.