Overview

There is a great difference between mere learning and true education. Mere learning involves simple adaptation to environmental cues, which has a prototype in the imprinting mechanisms of birds. The second is found only in humans, where genetic and epigenetic processes interact to add and control new stimuli and information. Koizumi seeks to use brain imaging techniques to build knowledge of brain functioning so as to improve true education about important human issues, such as hatred and love as well as physics and biology. A technique pioneered by Koizumi is optical topography, a non-invasive brain imaging technique that uses near-infrared technology to assess brain activation in infants and children, as well as adults, the elderly, and brain-damaged patients. One topic that it has illuminated is the plasticity of infants' brains, including the ability to differentiate language from other sounds, and maternal speech from other language. This technology is promising for educational purposes because it does not require that children remain completely still for imaging and can be used in relatively natural settings, in contrast to other brain-imaging techniques.

The Editors

In the twentieth century, the modern methodology of reductionism that was initially advocated by Descartes in the seventeenth century has led to remarkable success, especially in science and technology. In the twenty-first century, however, I think that syntheses of the minutely differentiated disciplines produced by the now long reign of reductionism will become very important.