This program is sponsored by the Covley Prize, which honors scientists for breakthroughs

in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

The Covley Prize is a partnership among the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,

the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the U.S.-based Covley Foundation in

Los Angeles, California.

I'm Alan Alder, and this is Clear and Vivid, Conversations about Connecting and Communicating.

We know that young brains can learn more rapidly and remember more rapidly.

And I have this dream because when I was a child, I did learn French, but I learned it when

I was in high school, and I could never speak French without an accent.

So my dream is, what if I could just go back to those early developmental, critical periods

of learning, turn those mechanisms back on, make an old brain young, and then I could

learn French without an accent?

That's Carla Schatz.

Her research into how our brains wire themselves up.

Later to coin the phrase, cells that fire together, wire together.

That phrase is now a foundational approach to how brains develop.

In 2016, she shared the Covley Prize in neuroscience.

Today, she's exploring the potential of a completely unexpected discovery that could

unlock our adult brain's ability to learn in that extraordinary way we did when we were

children.

I'm so happy you can be with us today.

This is going to be so much fun.

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