Björn Merker

Who is Björn Merker?

Björn Merker, Swedish citizen born May 15, 1943 in Tetschen, is a neuroscientist and an independent interdisciplinary scholar educated in the USA, now living in southern Sweden.

Merker studied psychology and brain science in the U.S., receiving a B.A. in psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York, and a PhD in psychology and brain science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 for work on midbrain orienting mechanisms. He then worked on oculomotor physiology in cats at UCLA and on the primary visual cortex of macaques at New York University. An interest in comparative behavioral biology led him to study song development and mirror self-recognition in gibbons, and eventually to research on the biological roots and evolutionary background of human music and language. With Nils Wallin and Steven Brown he edited the interdisciplinary volume The Origins of Music. In retirement, he continues active work on theoretical topics that include the analysis of brain macrosystems and their interaction, countercurrent modelling of cortical memory, the subcortical foundations of brain mechanisms of attention and consciousness, and the biological background to human music and language. Merker's theory is featured at online websites, such as by McGill University.