Margaret A. Kennard
A young white woman, standing outdoors and smiling, wearing glasses and a long light-colored dress with long sleeves and a thin belt
Margaret Kennard, from the 1922 Bryn Mawr College yearbook
Born
Margaret Alice Kennard

(1899-09-25)September 25, 1899
Brookline, Massachusetts
DiedDecember 12, 1975(1975-12-12) (aged 76)
NationalityAmerican
EducationBryn Mawr, Cornell, Yale

Margaret Alice Kennard (September 25, 1899—December 12, 1975)[1] was a neurologist who principally studied the effects of neurological damage on primates. Her work led to the creation of the Kennard Principle, which posits a negative linear relationship between age of a brain lesion and the outcome expectancy: in other words, that the earlier in life a brain lesion occurs, the more likely it is for some compensation mechanism to reverse at least some of the lesion's bad effects.[1]

Biography

Kennard graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1922.[2] She earned a Rockefeller Traveling Fellowship for study in Western Europe from 1934 to 1936.[3] She also studied the effects of stimulants and cortical depressants on monkeys with brain damage.[3]

Kennard Principle

Graphical representation of the Kennard Principle

The observation that young brains reorganize more effectively than adult brains was first articulated by Kennard in 1936. Consequently, the notion that how well a brain can reorganize itself after damage as a function of the developmental stage is now known as the "Kennard principle".[4] This research led to one of the earliest experimental evidence for age effects on neuroplasticity.

She worked closely with John Fulton in her famous infant brain studies.

References

  1. 1 2 Dennis, Maureen (September 2010). "Margaret Kennard (1899–1975): Not a 'Principle' of brain plasticity but a founding mother of developmental neuropsychology". Cortex. 46 (8): 1043–1059. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2009.10.008. ISSN 0010-9452. PMC 2907425. PMID 20079891.
  2. ↑ Bryn Mawr College (1922). Bryn Mawr College Yearbook. Special Collections Bryn Mawr College Library. p. 105 – via Internet Archive.
  3. 1 2 Finger, Stanley. Margaret Kennard on Sparing and Recovery of Function: A Tribute on The 100th anniversary of Her Birth. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. Vol. 8, Iss. 3, 1999.
  4. ↑ Freberg, L. Discovering biological psychology. 2nd. Wadsworth Pub Co, 2009. 251. Print.
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