Scientists can't get their minds around Alzheimer's

On a warm autumn afternoon, toward the end of a daylong barrage of PowerPoint presentations, a white-haired, gentlemanly fellow named Michael Merzenich faced a room full of neuroscientists and pharmaceutical executives and declared that, really, they could all pack up and go home. He thought he could stop Alzheimer's disease by doing nothing more than sitting old people down for a few months in front of computer screens and retraining their brains.

By Terry McDermott

December 27, 2007