Norman Doidge, author of the international bestseller “The Brain That Changes Itself” (Viking, 2007) will be the guest speaker for the 2009 Honors Lecture at Syracuse University, presented by the Reneé Crown University Honors Program. The lecture will be held at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 27, in SU’s Hendricks Chapel and is free and open to the public. Reduced-rate parking for $3.50 is available in the Irving Garage.

Doidge will present “The Brain That Changes Itself: The Neuroplasticity Revolution, and the Discovery that Mental Experience Changes Brain Structure.”

A native of Toronto, Doidge is considered a master in explaining science to the general public, especially new understandings of neuroplasticity, the discovery that the brain is not hard wired like a computer, but is a plastic, living organ that can change its own structure and function even into old age.

Doidge is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, author, essayist and poet. He is on the research faculty at Columbia University’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry. He has written more than 170 articles, both scientific and popular.

After winning the E.J. Pratt prize for poetry at the age of 19, Doidge went on to study classics and philosophy at the University of Toronto, graduating with distinction. He then earned a medical degree and went on to simultaneously complete psychiatric and psychoanalytic training at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, followed by two years as a Columbia-National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow and another year as a clinical fellow in psychiatry at Columbia.

Doidge is the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. National Psychiatric Endowment Award in Psychiatry and the American Psychoanalytic Association’s CORST Prize in Psychoanalysis and Culture. He was recently awarded the Mary S. Sigourney Prize, the highest award in international psychoanalysis and the National Association of Mental Illness Ken Book Award.

First established in 1963, the University’s Honors Program has borne the name of Renée Crown since 2002, when her family presented a naming gift to celebrate her many contributions to the University. In addition to pursuing their course of study in their home school or college, Honors students participate in a variety of curricular enrichment activities, extended civic engagement and interdisciplinary honors courses, seminars and workshops.

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