Trust Set Up for UC Irvine Center : Laguna Hills Couple Donate $1 Million for Brain Research

A Laguna Hills couple have donated $1 million to further research on Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders at UC Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

“My wife and I decided we wanted to do something useful with our money,” said Robert Bonney, whose wife Meryl got him interested in neurobiology after she took several classes in the field.

While the couple do not have relatives or friends who are victims of Alzheimer’s disease, Robert Bonney said, they decided that the center was a “worthwhile” cause after visiting it and investigating its reputation and findings.

The Bonneys established a $1-million trust fund that will revert to the center after they die. Last year, they donated $150,000 in stocks to the center.

The donation will be “very useful” to the center in providing needed facilities and equipment to study how the brain learns and stores information, said Dr. James McGaugh, an internationally known neurobiologist and director of the center.

In addition to studying Alzheimer’s disease, McGaugh said, the center’s 11 researchers look into the mechanics underlying learning and memory, and the changes that take place in the brain when learning occurs.

As part of that research, the center also studies “the things that go wrong that can lead to disorders,” McGaugh said.

The Bonneys have lived in Orange County since 1957, and Robert Bonney is co-founder and vice chairman of the board of EECO Inc., an electronics company that is based in Santa Ana.