The Amygdala: A Functional Analysis Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are interested in the amygdala, there are now many good books on the market, but this one is the best general overview I have found so far. It is both a good place to start in understanding what is currently known about the amygdala and a useful reference for more amygdala-experienced persons. It is too technical for the general reader, but understandable to anyone with a basic, college-level understanding of biopsychology and brain anatomy.
The book covers what is known about the circuitry of the amygdala itself and how it relates to the rest of the brain in both humans and primates. There are a lot of useful illustrations and tables that list the connections. Later chapters become more conceptual and discuss what these connections or their absense means for the function of the brain or the animal. Various disorders are discussed, including Alzheimer's disease.
There is a lot of emphasis on the issue of the amygdala processing emotions, especially fear and anger. There is discussion about emotionally-charged imagery and its effect on the brain through the processing by the amygdala. Unfortunately, the nature of creativity wasn't pursued more, but that is largely due to how far research has been able to go so far. Nonetheless, there are some interesting implications about how and why we experience visual art.
This is an excellent reference book, although I read it cover-to-cover, skimming over the more data-oriented text. It could easily be as useful to anyone studying mind states, philosophers, more science-oriented artists, or persons studying isses of perception as it would be to any number of scientists. I recommend it both as an excellent document and a great read.

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The amygdala is a central component of the limbic brain system and is known to be vital to understanding aspects of emotions, memory and social behavior. Dysfuction of the structure is also thought to contribute to a variety of disorders, including autism, Alzheimer's Disease and schizophrenia. The nature of its contribution to these fundamental aspects of behavior and cognition, and its relationship with other regions of the brain has remained elusive. However, since Aggleton's first book on the subject - The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction (1992) - there have been some major advances in our understanding of the processes involved and a dramatic rise in the volume of research. Scientists are now able to define its contribution in an increasingly precise manner. Leading experts from around the world have contributed chapters to this comprehensive and unique review, describing current thinking on the enigmatic brain structure. This book for all those with an interest in the neural basis of emotion and memory.

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Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry, Fifth Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)As a behavioral health specialist, I bought this book in 2007 to supplement my knowledge about psychiatric disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. In my view, the book is one of the best I have read in any academic discipline. All chapters are lucid, prudently organized, and superbly written; and the book has reinforced my expertise on this important subject. I strongly recommend resident psychiatrists in particular to purchase this book. I believe the book will help in molding competent psychiatrists, as the authors offer advice that can be indispensable.

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Widely recognised as the standard text for trainee psychiatrists, the 'Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry' stands head and shoulders above the competition. Written by three of the most experienced clinicians and researchers in European psychiatry and neuroscience, the text has been honed over five editions and displays a fluency, authority and insight which is not only rarely found but makes the process of assimilating information as smooth and enjoyable as possible. The book provides an introduction to all the clinical topics required by the trainee psychiatrist, including all the sub-specialties and major psychiatric conditions. Throughout, the authors emphasize the basic clinical skills required for the full assessment and understanding of the patient. Discussion of treatment includes not only scientific evidence, but also practical problems in the management of individual patients. The text emphasizes an evidence-based approach to practice and gives full attention to ethical and legal issues. Introductory chapters focus on recognition of signs and symptoms, classification and diagnosis, psychiatric assessment, and aetiology.Further chapters cover both pharmacological and psychological treatments in detail. A key feature is the equal prominence given to ICD and DSM classification - often with direct comparisons - which gives the book a universal appeal. Revised to include the latest evidence and guidelines using a team of expert advisors, the 'Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry' is the most up-to-date secondary level textbook of psychiatry available. The fifth edition also boasts a new modern design and greater use of summary boxes, tables, and lists than ever before. The extensive bibliography has been brought right up to date and there are targeted reading lists for each chapter. The 'Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry' fulfils all the study and revision needs of psychiatric trainees, but will also prove useful to medical students, GPs, qualified psychiatrists, and those in related fields who need to keep up to date with current psychiatric practice.

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The Soul in the Brain: The Cerebral Basis of Language, Art, and Belief Review

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(More customer reviews)After a lifetime studying epilepsy and other neurological disorders, Michael Trimble has taken his considerable experience and used it as a means to explore how we become poets, prophets, or madmen (or all of the above). Those interested in the work of Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio, and V.S. Ramachandran will welcome this highly interesting volume. Trimble is Professor of Behavioral Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, University of London. His work has concentrated on the study of epilepsy but he has also edited an excellent and comprehensive volume entitled Biological Psychiatry (1996). His understanding of broad issues in neuropsychiatry is second to none. But what distinguishes The Soul in the Brain from Trimble's previous work is its focus on topics important to all of us. As he writes "The main theme of this book is the cerebral representations of emotional experiences that relate to music and religion and associated activities such as poetry" (53).
Trimble does a superb job reviewing loads of material and highlighting those pieces most relevant to the issues at hand. Here is a neurologist with a longstanding and passionate commitment to understanding all things human. Trimble's expressed admiration of William James, Freud, and John Hughlings Jackson confirm his desire to bring the field variously entitled neuropsychiatry or behavioral neurology to bear upon vital aspects of human experience.
The Soul in the Brain reviews such varied topics as poetry and religiosity, music and madness. Trimble highlights the cerebral mechanisms that contribute to such aptitudes. He demonstrates a genuine appreciation for these topics and for the disciplines that have traditionally sought to understand them. Trimble is not militant in his scientism. Concerning religion, for instance, he writes "Profane man is a descendant of H. religiosus, and he cannot wipe out his own history" (19). Not by simplifying or reducing the phenomena at hand will we come to an understanding but through a systematic revelation of underlying mechanisms we can gain greater clarity.
Of particular interest is the consideration of the right cerebral hemisphere and its relation to language, a topic Trimble feels has been neglected in the past. While Broca's and Wernicke's areas (the main regions associated with language) are typically located in the left hemisphere, other critical aspects of language including our abilities to work with metaphor, prosody, and tone probably derive from the right hemisphere's special capabilities.
Trimble's writing is clear and competent with some literary flourishes occasioned, no doubt, by his regard for poetry. In my opinion, the volume could have used a bit more editing, it felt `uneven' in numerous places. Several times while reading The Soul in the Brain I wished Trimble would have abbreviated some material and elaborated elsewhere. Most importantly, I wish he had discussed the relationship between temporal lobe epilepsy and religion at even greater length. Trimble devoted a chapter to this topic but given his expertise and the number of times I came across his name while reading about temporal lobe epilepsy elsewhere I had hoped for an even lengthier analysis. Those specifically interested in temporal lobe epilepsy would do well to read this volume but ought to read Eve LaPlante's excellent book Seized (1993) also.
The scope of the book is vast and in spite of this ambitious scope Trimble manages to synthesize most of the material he relates. Without any grand unifying theories to help us adequately combine biological and social insights books, like this one, that attempt to bring together diverse fields necessarily feel a bit scattered. This is less an insufficiency than a demonstration of bold vision and the desire to bring together fields that have previously allowed themselves to pass like ships in the night.

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In this provocative study, Michael R. Trimble, M.D., tackles the interrelationship between brain function, language, art -- especially music and poetry -- and religion. By examining the breakdown of language in several neuropsychiatric disorders, neuroscientists have identified brain circuits that are involved with metaphor, poetry, music, and religious experiences. Drawing on this body of evidence, Trimble argues that religious experiences and beliefs are explicable biologically and relate to brain function, especially of the nondominant hemisphere.Inspired by the writings and reflections of his patients -- many of whom have epilepsy, psychosis, or affective disorders -- Trimble asks how the human species, so enamored of its own logic and critical facilities, has held from the dawn of civilization strong religious beliefs and a reverence for the arts. He explores topics such as the phenomena of hypergraphia and hyper-religiosity, how religious experiences and poetic expression are neurologically linked with our capacity to respond to music, and how neuropsychiatric disorders influence behaviors related to artistic expression and religiosity by disturbing brain function.With the sensitivity of a dedicated doctor and the curiosity of an accomplished scholar, Trimble offers an insightful analysis of how the study of people with paradigmatical neuropsychiatric conditions can be the cornerstone to unraveling some of the mysteries of the cerebral representations of our highest cultural experiences.

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In the Eye of the Beholder: The Science of Face Perception Review

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(More customer reviews)Authors Bruce and Young introduce aspects of the science of perception with reference to works of art. The book is a delight to read, and almost as much fun to browse, because the numerous images lead the browser to puzzle over the demonstrated twists of perception. The authors take appropriate, detailed steps in explaining the physical and psychological path of seeing. Additionally, they show us the importance of totally contemporary, computer tools used in the exploration of human perception.
I found In the Eye of the Beholder in the library, read it almost without putting it down, and had to buy a copy for myself. I will certainly be showing it to my students in drawing and painting.

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The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius Review

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(More customer reviews)It is accurate to say that there has been more creative energy released in the last twenty-five years than any than the last twenty-five hundred. This is due not only to the number of people that are actually alive now, but also to the vast amount of knowledge that is readily available. Modern technology is responsible for the availability of this knowledge, and the technology itself was the result of human creativity and ingenuity. In addition, creative people can now communicate in ways they could not before, thanks to the rise of the Internet. Further, innovation has been strongly encouraged, not primarily by educational institutions and hierarchies, but by the business community. This is an interesting development, and one that shows every indication of continuing. The academy, which used to be considered a refugee camp for the creative mind, is no longer a place where one can pursue and develop original ideas without extreme difficulty.
In this highly interesting book, the author acknowledges that the environment is important in nurturing creativity, but she also wants to understand what mechanisms in the brain are responsible for it. An understanding of these mechanisms is extremely important, for it could point the way to better methods of enhancing creativity, either by using pharmaceuticals, with techniques from genetic engineering, or possibly with radical changes in the environment. The author is a neuroscientist, and not a philosopher, and so her analysis is based more on what is observed in the laboratory, and not mere speculations from the armchair. Her goal is to obtain a neuroscience of creativity, which considering the paucity of research in this area, is a goal that one hopes she (and other researchers) will succeed in reaching.
One of the first issues that the author addresses in the book is the relation (if any) between intelligence and creativity. Reviewing the history of the study between these two notions, and noting creative people have been equated with "geniuses", she concludes that, in general, one can conclude that a certain level of intelligence is needed to make original contributions, one needs another faculty of the brain in order to do so. It is not clear from this discussion whether she believes that this entails a modular view of the brain, i.e. one in which the brain consists of specialized modules for various tasks, one of these modules being for tasks requiring creativity.
The author is also careful to note that originality, creativity, or novelty are concepts that are dependent on the context in which ideas arise and in the perceived utility of these ideas. In this regard, she discusses the work of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who believed in the existence of "true creativity". As summarized by the author, Csikszentmihalyi held that creativity should be understood in terms of the relationship between a `domain', which is a particular area of knowledge; a `field' that is a collection of experts in the domain, and a `person' who actually introduces novel ideas into the domain under the auspices of the field. Motivated by these considerations, the author holds that creativity must involve originality, utility, and must lead to product of some kind. These requirements, at least on the surface, are reasonable, but there are difficulties that arise when one attempts to check them for a particular idea or concept. One issue that immediately arises in this regard is attempting to check whether indeed the concept or creation is indeed novel, or whether it was actually contained in prior ideas or creations. The issue of whether an idea was actually contained in prior ones comes up quite frequently in the field of automated mathematical discovery, which seeks to emulate, in a machine, human creative mathematical ability. Because of the deductive nature of mathematics, the progression of ideas must follow logically from those in prior ones, i.e. in the premises. But the "new" ideas must be different in some sense from the ones that they are logically derived from. It can be become very debatable whether these ideas were indeed original, or whether they were merely "contained in the premises."
The book would not be complete of course if the author did not discuss in detail her ideas on the neuroscience behind creativity. For the general reader, she includes some elementary discussion on brain anatomy as a warm-up. In her brief treatment of the functions of the brain she mentions the current debate as to the executive functions of the brain, i.e. whether there is a central "executive" in the brain that decides what changes are to occur. As an alternative to a central authority, the author mentions the view of the brain as being a `self-organizing' system. This is currently a popular view of the brain among physicists, and for the author it helps to explain what she calls "ordinary creativity." However, the author clearly believes that something else is needed to explain "extraordinary" creativity: unconscious processes such as the process of `free association.' The author refers to her experimental work on using neuroimaging technology to find out which areas of the brain are active during free association. Her work is also dependent on the notion of `episodic memory', which she characterizes as memory that is linked to the personal experiences of the individual. Her neuroimaging experiments indicated that the association cortex was active when the subject was engaging in random unconscious free association. She is careful to admit though that a lot more research is needed to find the neural basis behind extraordinary creativity, but her suspicion is that it involves making links between objects or concepts that were not linked before. These associative links "run wild" and create new connections, resulting in a disorganized mental state. This motivates her to study the connection between creativity and insanity, a topic that she also discusses at some length in the book, along with hints and exercises that individuals can use to enhance their creativity.

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Practical MR Physics Review

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(More customer reviews)Practical MR Physics is an excellent addition to any department's library. The physics of MR are addressed in clear concise terms and presented in an understandable format. What really sets this text apart is the authors approach to imaging artifacts. Through real world case presentations, the readers are educated about the artifacts encountered, their underlying causation, and methods for elimination. I have added this book to my recommended reading list for MRI Students, and also recommend it as a valuable resource for practicing technologists.

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The underlying physics of magnetic resonance imaging is a topic of considerable importance since a basic understanding is necessary to accurately interpret and generate high quality MR images.Yet it can be a challenging topic in spite of the best efforts of both teachers and students of the subject. Practical MR Physics reviews the basic principles of MR using familiar language and explains the causes of common imaging artifacts and pitfalls.The book will also be a helpful guide during review of clinical cases since the reader can look up specific imaging artifacts or pitfalls in the index. Featuring over 375 high quality images, numerous case examples, and concise, clinically oriented discussion of the physics behind the images, Practical MR Physics is an ideal resource for anyone who works in the field of MR imaging.

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Music, Language, and the Brain Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the best book so far on language, the brain, and music. It is highly technical, especially the first five chapters. Nonspecialists with a serious interest can get through the last two ("Meaning" and "Evolution") but the first five are hard going unless you are fairly advanced.
Patel reviews an enormous, and almost entirely very new, literature on similarities and differences at the micro level between language and music. Overall, music is clearly related to language in many ways, but equally clearly a separate realm--a different communicative modality.
He also points out that music and its meanings are learned. We are not born knowing that minor key is "sad"; that's a recent west-European idea, unknown to the rest of the universe. We have to learn about the pastorality of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and so on. On the other hand, lullabyes sound like mothers shushing their babies, and I would add that laments in every culture sound like ordinary weeping. Still, most musical meanings appear to be culturally learned.
This is an excellent book, and I am duly impressed with all of it, but I do have some modest points to raise. First, I would find music and language somewhat closer than he does. He rules out of consideration a number of intermediate forms--chant, rhythmic speech (like African-American sermons), incantation, word-music poetry (like Russian romantic lyrics), children's play-games, and a great deal more. It seems that a huge percentage of human communication, including much of the most important religious material in every culture, is in that neglected border zone. Something very important is here and is being missed.
Second, he concludes language definitely evolved, but music is a rather recent invention--not an evolved part of communication. I am usually highly allergic to "genes as destiny," and this is surely the first time I ever argued for a genetic explanation against a learning-based one! But I can't separate music and language enough to see music as a recent invention. It depends on some of the same recursive hierarchic-nesting systems of planning as language does; it is universal among humans; it is deeply important; it seems a physical need for a lot of people. Of course I cannot be sure if this means there really is an evolved mechanism, and the question remains open.
Third, he rather misses the relevance of bird song. He is aware of, but strangely downplays, recent work showing that many (most?) songbirds learn their songs and use them to recognize their mates, neighbors, local dialect sharers, and so on. Birds also use song to keep in touch with their families, show their levels of health (as pointed out by Marlene Zuk), show their reproductive status, find each other, and much else. They also use song to communicate their mood states: level of arousal, type of arousal, and more. This is important, as will appear below.
Many songbirds are quite brilliant composers; mockingbirds and many others incorporate all sorts of learned noises into their songs, change the noises to fit their song patterns, work them into original phrases, and so on. Of course no bird comes close to composing even a simple song in the human sense (i.e. a single hierarchically-nested composition using phrases to carry out an overall plan). Bird song has mere "phrase structure grammar," to be technical; they don't do sentences. (No nonhuman animal is known to.) But they are doing something more than just marking territory and finding a mate. Actually, many of the best singers mate for life and don't need to find a mate in most years. Yet they and their mates often sing to each other. Also, many birds sing all year round, not just in the breeding season. We don't know what they are saying, but obviously a lot. Very simple calls do fine for territory-and-mating. Song is incredibly dangerous (hawks and cats home in on it) and expensive (it takes a lot of brain tissue, enough to be a real cost in flying). If the simple and humble songs of birds are this complex and demanding, human music must be a really major enterprise, far more important than social scientists have allowed till now. Bird songs are important because no nonhuman primates and very few other mammals are known to have complex learned songs. Bird songs are about our only models. (Whales sing too, but don't make great lab animals.)
I think music evolved, and did so to handle the management, manipulation, and communication of broad, general, but intense mood-states. Language handles the specific cognitive information; music handles the powerful but unsayable moods. Partly, the moods are directly represented in the music (as in lullabyes and laments); partly we learn our cultures' rules about communicating.
There is a great deal more to say about this, especially when one folds religious chants into the mix. We need more dialogue and better cross-cultural and cross-species knowledge. Is there a group out there working on this?

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In the first comprehensive study of the relationship between music and language from the standpoint of cognitive neuroscience, Aniruddh D. Patel challenges the widespread belief that music and language are processed independently. Since Plato's time, the relationship between music and language has attracted interest and debate from a wide range of thinkers.Recently, scientific research on this topic has been growing rapidly, as scholars from diverse disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, music cognition, and neuroscience are drawn to the music-language interface as one way to explore the extent to which different mental abilities are processed by separate brain mechanisms.Accordingly, the relevant data and theories have been spread across a range of disciplines.This volume provides the first synthesis, arguing that music and language share deep and critical connections, and that comparative research provides a powerful way to study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying these uniquely human abilities.Winner of the 2008 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award

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Principles of Frontal Lobe Function Review

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(More customer reviews)Shortly after this book came out I took it with me to a conference. A fellow neurologist saw it and commented, "Great book, but you can't read it." Though there is a good deal of clinically relevant material here, the book is basically written from a cognitive neuroscience perspective and so some background in that discipline is necessary to comprehend the material. The book is a yeasty mix of theoretical and experimental work in these 34 chapters, often with overlapping but different, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives on the same phenomena, on what was once the terra incognita of the human brain. There is still a great deal of mystery and controversy over how the frontal lobes work, but we have come a long way since the story of Phineas Gage, and the contributors to this book have been amongst the pioneers. Definitely the premiere currently available book on the frontal lobes.

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Principles of Frontal Lobe Function provides a comprehensive review of historical and current research on the functions of the frontal lobes and frontal systems of the brain.The content covers frontal lobe functions from birth to old age, from biochemistry and anatomy to rehabilitation, from normal to disrupted function.Two introductory chapters guide, in different ways, reading of subsequent chapters.Following are a number of chapters dealing with basic science- neuroanatomy and neurochemistry. The various theoretical positions proposed reflect the diversity of approaches to the same fundamental question about the role of the frontal lobes.Some chapters deal with broad, salient issues such as functional heterogeneity versus homogeneity, while others narrow their focus on specific functions like motor control, language, memory and attention, executive functioning, and emotional and social behavior.The book concludes with chapters on applied clinical research such as frontal lobe pathology in neurological diseases and disorders, stroke, and traumatic brain injury, as well as strategies for neurorehabilitation. This book is intended to be a standard reference work on the frontal lobes for researchers, clinicians, and students in the fields of neurology, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and health care.

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Neuropsychology of Art: Neurological, Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspectives (Brain, Behaviour and Cognition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Intrigued by the promise of its title, I zipped over to my local university library as soon as this book came in. Alas, this is not only the last word on the topic, it is not even an adequate summary of recent work.
The author is a neuroscientist herself, but the usual penetrating and synthesizing insight of such specialists seems lacking here. In her chapters on musical art and brain damage, I miss the central focus of this kind of study: the scientist learns about brain function from those who have lost a specific piece of it. Zaidel refers to some interesting studies and historical anecdotes (musicians who sustained this or that kind of brain damage), but I the reader do not learn what I want to from the discussions. I learn details, but the stories and studies do not cumulate in a big picture. Of course modern brain research is still developing, yet other researchers give me more of a sense that they can intuit a big picture beyond what they can clearly see.
Also in the music section, Zaidel's end-of-section paragraph of summary does not include major insights derived from Isabelle Peretz, one of the foremost neuroscientists of music, though Zaidel cites a couple of Peretz' publications in her bibliographies. Peretz gives a significantly better explanation of currently understood brain processing of musical phenomena than Zaidel does, but you wouldn't know from this book. It's not a bad book, just not a great one.

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The significance of art in human existence has long been a source of puzzlement, fascination, and mystery. In Neuropsychology of Art, Dahlia W. Zaidel explores the brain regions and neuronal systems that support artistic creativity, talent, and appreciation.Both the visual and musical arts are discussed against a neurological background. Evidence from the latest relevant brain research is presented and critically examined in an attempt to clarify the brain-art relationship, language processing and visuo-spatial perception. The consequences of perceptual problems in famous artists, along with data from autistic savants and established artists with brain damage as a result of unilateral stroke, dementia, or other neurological conditions, are brought into consideration and the effects of damage to specific regions of the brain explored. A major compilation of rare cases of artists with brain damage is provided and the cognitive abilities required for the neuropsychology of art reviewed.This book draws on interdisciplinary principles from the biology of art, brain evolution, anthropology, and the cinema through to the question of beauty, language, perception, and hemispheric specialization. It will be of interest to advanced students in neuro-psychology, neuroscience and neurology, to clinicians and all researchers and scholars interested in the workings of the human brain.

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Eye and Brain Review

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(More customer reviews)Who would have thought that a book about the mechanics, physiology and psychology of seeing could be such a riveting read? This is one of the best popular science books around, and I don't even think Gregory intended it to be a layman's book--it's just so well written and interesting that it will delight lay readers as well as its intended student audience.
Gregory starts with a short chapter intended to outline some of the less-obvious issues in understanding how we see. Here, as well as throughout the book, he uses optical illusions to make points. The next chapters cover light itself, and the structure and function of the eye and brain, including accounts of how the eye evolved. The rest of the book discusses brightness, colour, and questions such as "How do we visually determine size?" and "Can machines be taught to see?"
The book is full of accounts of intriguing experiments and case-studies. Two examples of many: Gregory and a colleague, Jean Wallace, worked in 1961-1962 with a man of 52 whose sight was restored to him after a life of blindness. The account of his slow and incomplete adaptation to the world of sight, and his ultimate slide into depression and death (he had been active and capable as a blind person) is fascinating and moving. Another example: Gregory discusses various researchers who spent some time wearing vision apparatus that dramatically changed their perceptions, such as Stratton, Ewert and the Paterson's. In these cases--where for example the wearer could see their own body suspended in front of them, or see everything upside down--the details of the adaptations of perception are thought-provoking and still not completely understood.
Strongly recommended.

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Since the publication of the first edition in 1966, Eye and Brain has established itself worldwide as an essential introduction to the basic phenomena of visual perception. In this book, Richard L. Gregory offers clear explanations of how we see brightness, movement, color, and objects, and he explores the phenomena of visual illusions to establish principles about how perception normally works and why it sometimes fails. Although successive editions have incorporated new discoveries and ideas, Gregory completely revised and updated the book for this publication, adding more than thirty new illustrations. The phenomena of illusion continue to be a major theme in the book, in which the author makes a new attempt to provide a comprehensive classification system. There are also new sections on what babies see and how they learn to see, on motion perception, and tantalizing glimpses of the relationship between vision and consciousness and of the impact of new brain imaging techniques. In addition, the presentation of the text and illustrations has been improved by the larger format and new page design. The thousands of readers of the previous editions of Eye and Brain will find this new revised edition even more attractive and enthralling.

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A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers Review

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(More customer reviews)I attended the 2005 Skeptics Society conference on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness at Caltech, where Ramachandran had been scheduled to speak but was unable to do so because of a family emergency. Although I was not previously familiar with his work, the description led me to believe he was a speaker I would be interested in hearing, and this book, which I purchased at the conference, provides a strong case for that. I've long had an interest in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and minored in cognitive science in my Ph.D. studies (never completed) at the University of Arizona. I've been out of academia for 11 years now, and apart from reading occasional works like Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained and Freedom Evolves, I've not been keeping close tabs on the field. The conference and this book were quite a pleasure--it is clear that there have been some significant developments over the last decade.
It is hard to believe that there are still people who think the brain is little more than a radio receiver, a set of mechanical controls for a disembodied spirit to manipulate the body. Ramachandran's book--like the case studies of Oliver Sacks and A.N. Luria--shows how wrongheaded that view is.
This is a thin (112 pages of text, 45 pages of notes), very accessible and entertaining book. If you enjoy the works of Sacks and Luria, you are likely to enjoy this as well. This is not a collection of case studies, though there are some descriptions of particular patients--it is written from a higher elevation, bringing together recent results, explaining unusual phenomena, and speculating about how those phenomena may tie in to a further understanding of the details of the brain's function.
The book came from Ramachandran's BBC Reith lectures, so it is for a popular audience, with the notes providing some more underlying detail. There are five chapters, each dealing with a single topic. The first chapter is about amputees who experience pain in their "phantom limbs" and how the parts of the brain which had been devoted to the now-absent limbs can become mapped to still-present parts of the body which are handled by physically proximate parts of the brain. For example, a patient whose left arm had been amputated could feel contact to the nonexistent fingers of his left hand from touches to parts of his face or upper arm. Ramachandran then uses this remapping phenomenon to speculate about the causes of Capgras' syndrome (where a patient believes people he knows have been replaced withimpostors), synesthesia, and pain asymbolia, where a patient responds to pain stimulus with laughter.
The second chapter is about vision, and specifically about the phenomena of blindsight (where a person has no experience of seeing, but at an unconscious level does see), hemisphere neglect, and mirror agnosia. In this chapter Ramachandran discusses "mirror neurons," neurons found in monkeys which activate when a monkey performs some task, but also when the monkey sees another monkey perform the same task.
The third chapter, "The Artful Brain," is the most speculative, and provides Ramachandran's suggested ten "universal laws of art," which he offers as features we find aesthetically pleasing in art, and discusses some reasons why those features might be pleasing to the brain.
The fourth chapter deals in more detail with synesthesia, the perception of stimuli with multiple senses, such as experiencing colors corresponding with sounds or numbers. He links this to cross-activation of sites in the brain (similar to his discussion in the first chapter), points out some similar phenomena that most people share (such as a tendency to associate certain kinds of abstract shapes with certain sounds or names), and speculates that such associations may have paved the way for the evolution of language from non-verbal communication.
The fifth and final chapter is titled "Neuroscience--The New Philosophy." Ramachandran discusses how some of the phenomena of neuroscience might bear on questions from philosophy of mind about qualia, free will, and self-awareness. The chapter doesn't get very deep into any of these philosophical issues, but it's clear that more has been learned in the last few decades of neuroscience than in the last few millenia of philosophy.
I highly recommend this book as an introduction to these topics.

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Statistical Analysis of fMRI Data Review

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(More customer reviews)The books succeeds in elucidates the complex world of fMRI statistics. The book guides a reader throughout the process of fMRI data analysis with clear, practical examples. It is also possible to read select chapters on particular topics of interest. Additionally, there are many specific tips and tricks to improve the quality of fMRI studies and subsequent analysis. The value (i.e., price for information) is extraordinary. Thus, making it an appropriate textbook choice for a graduate level course in fMRI data analysis. As additional value, there is Matlab code on his personal website, [...], to facilitate a deeper understanding of the concepts. Overall, this book is an invaluable asset to the field.

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"Understanding the complexities associated with the generation of brainfunction images is essential, but this information is often difficult to obtain.This lovely new book by Ashby is a major step in meeting that need. I recommend itwith enthusiasm to new initiates to imaging as well as seasoned veterans."Marcus Raichle , Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology,and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St Louis

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The Neuron: Cell and Molecular Biology Review

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(More customer reviews)I have compared several neurobiology textbooks and this one is my favorite. It's almost like a novel, very enjoyable. It emphasizes understanding of important concepts rather than throwing an overwhelming amount of facts at the students. And the organization of the material is great. There is an updated edition now, and I look forward to reading it.

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The third edition of The Neuron provides a comprehensive first course in the cell and molecular biology of nerve cells. The first part of the book covers the properties of the many ion channels that shape the way a single neuron generates varied patterns of electrical activity, as well as the molecular mechanisms that convert electrical activity into the secretion of neurotransmitter hormones at synaptic junctions between neurons. The second part covers the biochemical pathways that are linked to the action of neurotransmitters and can alter the cellular properties of neurons or sensory cells that transduce information from the outside world into the electrical code used by neurons. The final section reviews our rapidly expanding knowledge of the molecular factors that induce an undifferentiated cell to become a neuron, and then guide it to form appropriate synaptic connections with its partners. This section also focuses on the role of ongoing experience and activity in shaping these connections, and finishes with an account of mechanisms thought to underlie the phenomena of learning and memory.

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Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain Review

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(More customer reviews)as someone with a doctorate in psychology who has retired to a life of intensive painting, i can say this book falls short in its fundamental premise: if we can identify a distinct visual capability in the brain, that capability forms the basis for visual esthetic judgments. that argument unfortunately goes nowhere, and the result is a thin book with its substantive content spread even thinner.
zeki's argument is roughly that the mind is an active creator of visual experience; that we create visual experience using a variety of "modular" cerebral functions (specific neighborhoods of the brain that detect edges, analyze movement, perceive color, recognize faces); and that art works which "appeal" to these modular capabilities provide the foundation for art. claims that art that becomes "great" if the mind is presented with ambiguous or multiple interpretations, provoking it to "actively create" varied interpretations from the work in view. in this way zeki hopes to reason his way toward a "neurological esthetics," a biologically based prescription of what is beautiful or compelling art.
well, where to begin ... because a brain function is invoked by a stimulus does not make it interesting or great; my review invokes your language capabilities, but that doesn't make my words poetry. a painting does not succeed by creating a variety of specific but competing interpretations, as zeki claims, but by reframing awareness into a realm where the mundane categorizations necessary for behavior are stretched by the exercise of the senses. what counts as beautiful cannot be determined from the quantitative activity of different brain regions. what counts as beautiful depends heavily on cultural expectations, not on physiology ... on and on the objections roll.
in the end, zeki's argument is highly parochial. his examples come from the "edge detection" art of the supremacists or the cubists; the "color perception" art of the fauves, the "movement perception" art of calder, and so on -- simplistic art for simplistic art theories. (someone should ask, where are the edges in monet or turner, the color in kline or velazquez, the movement in vermeer or van dyck?) on the philosophical side, zeki seems willing to cite plato or hegel as straw men to knock down, but seems completely unaware of the many philosophical or social psychological theorists who could enrich his "active construction" view of visual perception. finally, zeki seems not to have had a personal colloquy with practicing artists, who could disabuse him of his naive reading of western art and its traditions.
psychologists will find this book to be unexpectedly thin on the facts of recent neural research and cognitive function, and lacking in philosophical depth. artists will look at zeki's simplistic reading of art and art history, shrug and wonder, what is this guy talking about?

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Handbook of Neurolinguistics Review

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(More customer reviews)While this text provides relevant literature reviews in all the areas of neurolinguistics, it lacks introductory chapters that make the later chapters truely accesible to the beginning student in the field. A must for professionals, but outrageously priced for any self-respecting graduate student or new faculty member in language and cognition.

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The Handbook of Neurolinguistics is a state-of-the-art reference and resource book; it describes current research and theory in the many subfields of neurolinguistics and its clinical application. Thorough and clearly written, the Handbook provides an excellent overview of the field of neurolinguistics and its development.The book is organized into five parts covering the history of neurolinguistics, methods in clinical and experimental neurolinguistics, experimental neurolinguistics, clinical neurolinguistics, and resources in neurolinguistics. The first four parts contain a wide range of topics which discuss all important aspects of the many subfields of neurolinguistics. Also included are the relatively new and fast developing areas of research in discourse, pragmatics, and recent neuroimaging techniques. The resources section provides currently available resources, both traditional and modern. The Handbook is useful to the newcomer to the field, as well as the expert searching for the latest developments in neurolinguistics. Key Features* Clearly written and well organized* Provides extensive resources* Discusses both history and current research* Covers the many subfields of neurolinguistics as well the developing areas of research

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Adult Neurogenesis: Stem Cells and Neuronal Development in the Adult Brain Review

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(More customer reviews)Adult neurogenesis - the generation of new neurons in the adult brain - is one of the most exciting fields of inquiry in the neurosciences. Most people believed it to be impossible until quite recently. Gradually that view gave way to another: that perhaps it could occur under certain special circumstances. Now it has become an accepted part of mammalian neurobiology. While the best evidence for adult neurogenesis is in the olfactory bulb and hippocampus. There are tantalizing clues that it may also occur in other regions of the adult brain.
This is one of the first books in English to provide a comprehensive account of this fascinating field. It is written by Gerd Kempermann, who is Head of the Research Group, Neural Stem Cells, at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin-Buch in Germany, who is a recognized leader in the field.
The twelve chapters are arranged logically and systematically:
1. Introduction
2. History
3. Neural Stem Cells
4. Neuronal Development
5. Neurogenesis in Adult Olfactory System
6. Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis
7. Technical Notes
8. Neurogenic and Non-neurogenic Regions
9. Regulation
10. Function
11. Adult Neurogenesis in Different Animal Species
12. Medicine
Beginning with a brief overview and historical background, the book moves on to discuss theories of adult neurogenesis and neural stem cell biology in learning and memory as well as structural plasticity. After describing neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus and olfactory system, Professor Kempermann takes us through the current state of knowledge about the regulation and functions of neurogenesis. I particularly liked the last section where he tries - with some success - to tie failures of adult neurogenesis with some neurological diseases including temporal lobe epilepsy, major depression, some brain tumors and dementias. Some of these ideas have been published in scholarly articles over the last five years, but here the ideas are collected together and developed for the first time.
There is an important point that I could not find in the book: loss of the ability to smell, or to distinguish smells, are common early features of Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. In both there may also be pathology in the hippocampus. So the link between loss of olfaction and loss of memory may be impaired neurogenesis in the two sites.
The book is well written, despite English being a second language for the author. The illustrations are well selected and well produced.
At a time when it takes months or even a year or more to publish papers in the scientific literature, it is always difficult to try and keep books up to date. This one has plenty of citations up to the second half of 2004.
Serious students will want to use this book as a starting point and then supplement it with some reviews from the literature. (Interested readers will find regular updates on adult neurogenesis on my blogs.)
This book is an easy read and will be of interest to anyone interested in the brain and the mind, how things can go wrong, and some of the extraordinary promise of adult neurogenesis.
Highly recommended.

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The discovery of adult neurogenesis and of stem cells in the brain has changed our view of the mature brain.Though we now know that the adult brain can make new neurons, it normally does so only in two privileged regions, the olfactory bulb and the hippocampus.Yet stem cells, which have the potential to produce new neurons, can be found throughout the adult brain.So why does the brain not make wider use of its potential for neurogenesis?And what is the function of new neurons and of neural stem cells in areas where they occur?After all, the brain regenerates poorly and many neurological and psychiatric disorders are chronic because cell replacement has not taken place. This is the first comprehensive, integrated account of one of the most exciting areas of neuroscience.It begins with the historical background and discusses theories of adult neurogenesis and neural stem cell biology in the context of learning and memory processes as well as structural plasticity.It describes in detail neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus and olfactory system and then surveys the regulatory, functional, and comparative aspects, concluding with a chapter on the provocative hypotheses that link failing adult neurogenesis with such diseases as temporal lobe epilepsy, major depression, brain tumors, and dementias. For graduate students, investigators, and clinicians in the neurosciences, developmental biology, and stem cell research, this book is a unique resource that sifts through the evidence for exciting scientific ideas and fosters a realistic view of the therapeutic possibilities for the use of stem cells in the adult brain.

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Memory Rehabilitation: Integrating Theory and Practice Review

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(More customer reviews)They say the memory is the first thing to go, but can it be taken back? "Memory Rehabilitation: Integrating Theory and Practice" is a scholarly psychological text discussing memory and how to rehabilitate it when faced with disorders such as amnesia, memory loss attributed to age and other disorders such as Alzheimers. The therapies listed include everything from simple aids to ways to train one's mind. "Memory Rehabilitation" is a informed and highly scholarly text that does well in every community or college library collection that focuses on psychology and its disorders.

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From a well-known authority, this comprehensive yet accessible book shows how state-of-the-art research can be applied to help people with nonprogressive memory disorders improve their functioning and quality of life. Barbara Wilson describes a broad range of interventions, including compensatory aids, learning strategies, and techniques for managing associated anxiety and stress. She reviews the evidence base for each clinical strategy or tool and offers expert guidance on how to assess patients, set treatment goals, develop individualized rehabilitation programs, and conduct memory groups. The book also provides essential background knowledge on the nature and causes of memory impairment.

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