Luria Congress on Modern Neuropsychology

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.