The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

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V S Ramachandran is at the forefront of his field so much so that Richard Dawkins dubbed him the Marco Polo of neuroscience Now, in a major new work, Ramachandran sets his sights on the mystery of human uniqueness Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about normal brain function and how it evolved Synesthesia becomes a window into the brain mechanisms that make some of us creative than others And autism for which Ramachandran opens a new direction for treatment gives us a glimpse of the aspect of being human that we understand least self awareness Ramachandran tackles the most exciting and controversial topics in neurology with a storyteller s eye for compelling case studies and a researcher s flair for new approaches to age old questions Tracing the strange links between neurology and behavior, this book unveils a wealth of clues into the deepest mysteries of the human brain. Best Download Kindle ePUB The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human Author V.S. Ramachandran – kino-fada.fr Brilliant book Informative, entertaining and never too pedantic Some of the concepts teeter on the edge of wild speculation but is cheerfully admitted to be so by the author Am truly lucky to have an autographed copy of this pat...This is a brilliant book by a first rate scientist Ramachandran has personally made some amazing discoveries in the field of neuroscience His writing is lucid, and his enthusiastic, personable style makes this an informative, as well as a very entertaining book.Ramachandran s approach is to investigate patients who have had varying degrees and types of brain defects or injuries These patients acquire abilities or handicaps that Ramachandran interprets and analyzes, in the hope of casting ligh This is a brilliant book by a first rate scientist Ramachandran has personally made some amazing discoveries in the field of neuroscience His writing is lucid, and his enthusiastic, personable style makes this an informative, as well as a very entertaining book.Ramachandran s approach is to investigate patients who have had varying degrees and types of brain defects or injuries These patients acquire abilities or handicaps that Ramachandran interprets and analyzes, in the hope of casting light on the underlying structure of the brain Some of these handicaps are quite bizarre, for example blindsight, in which a person has only subconscious ability to see synesthesia, in which a ...I ve never read Ramachandran in long form before, and I don t think I ever will again This stuff is right up my tree popular neurology butno I started having a sinking feeling at Over the years I have worked with hundreds of patients afflicted, though some feel they are blessed, with a great diversi...I don t really know all that much about neuroscience or the field in general, so please take this review with a grain of salt I have to say that I was pretty disappointed by The Tell Tale Brain, which billed itself to be an overview tour of the brain and how it is used to delineate our sense of self This is primarily achieved by examining brain based maladies with the thinking that really outlandish and odd...Brilliant books as expected from the prestigious reviews seen on its cover It s a book about various aspects of human brain functions, explained in lay language, but without compromising the quality of the information A case study illustrates the issue at the start of each chapter, then the chapter goes into explaining what is known about the issue but the author is a researcher and a clinician and this book goes far beyond just describing the state of the art Many new hypotheses are presen Brilliant books as expected from the prestigious reviews seen on its cover It s a book about various aspects of human brain functions, explained in lay language, but without compromising the quality of the information A case study illustrates the issue at the start of each chapter, then the chapter goes into explaining what is known about the issue but the author is a researcher and a clinician and this book goes far beyond just describing the state of the art Many new hypotheses are presented and the author discusses them in all honesty, presenting the evidence indicating that these hypotheses are plausible and presenting also the possible experiments that could be done in the future to support the hypotheses.I particularly enjoyed the parts dealing with mirror neurons, intropspection and evolution of lan...I have to emotionally review this book and then write a response to another reviewer AMAZING So fun, so many good facts and brain candy I love how out of so many things that we consider disorders we can piece together ourselves in our many arrayed fashion and find similarities and Synesthesia What who ever heard of people responding to number color categories in the fashion fabulous So many interesting and intriguing case studies Our mind is so variable and so fragile, we are all humble I have to emotionally review this book and then write a response ...Ramachandran explores through fascinating case story telling and research data the mysteries of the human brain His examples of brain memory are an eye opener and give a new perspective on how we view the dynamics of consciousness and health issues related to brain defects and injuries I am most grateful after reading his book to finally understand why people feel pain in their stomach first when they have appendicitis just one of those mysteries in life I always wondered about Although qui Ramachandran explores through fascinating case story telling and research data the mysteries of the human brain His examples of brain memory are an eye opener and give a new perspective on how we view the dynamics of consciousness and health issues related to brain defects and injuries I am most grateful after reading his book to finally understand why people feel pain in their stomach first when they have appendicitis just one of th...This book repeats a lot of stuff that s in Phantoms in the Brain so I regard it as a rip off Read one or the other but you don t need to read both I also found the way Ramachandran s politics and his antipathy to religion intrude into his neuroscience quite obnoxious He seems to be winking at the reader and saying you and me, we re Democrats, right We re smarter and saner than guys like Dick Cheney This kind of thing is insulting to people who ve ponied up 15 dollars for his book but may n This book repeats a lot of stuff that s in Phantoms in the Brain so I regard it as a rip off Read one or the other but you don t need to read both I also found the way Ramachandran s politics and his antipathy to ...I deeply respect Ramachandran and I believe his unique Holmesian approach to research is an invaluable benefit to a field that risks moving at a snail s pace, possibly backwards, in it s quest to functionally image everything to death So many of his far flung hunches have proven correct, and many of his random ideas have fuelled entire directions in research I absolutely admire him.That being said, I was unimpressed with this book It felt disjointed and repetitive, swinging wildly from one I deeply respect Ramachandran and I believe his unique Holmesian approach to research is an invaluable benefit to a field that risks moving at a snail s pace, possibly backwards, in it s quest to functionally image everything to death So many of his far flung hunches have proven correct, and many of his random ideas have fuelled entire directions in research I absolutely admire him.That being said, I was unimpressed with this book It felt disjointed and repetitive, swinging wildly from one fascinating patient to the next in anecdotal abandon, reiterating everything Ramachandran has said in previous books and trying to tie it all together with a flimsy theme, so broad you could make a case that every psychological observation fits into it Falsifiability is an important the most important aspect of science, and while the individual lines of inquiry the author proposes are certainly falsifiable, his overarching theme of human uniqueness is not though it may seem counterintuitive...Mirror neurons are simply fascinating Going 4000 years back, closeness of all the early inventions like the invention of wheel, fire, self awareness, civilization etc had always baffled the scientific world as to what made them wait for 3000 years to make the first civilization or discovery of mind and gods, in spite of having the same brain formation What the recent studies have indicated is that at that point of time something evolved in brain which didn t exist for other animals, something Mirror neurons are simply fascinating Going 4000 years back, closeness of all the early inventions like the invention of wheel, fire, self awareness, civilization etc had always baffled the scientific world as to what made them wait for 3000 years to make the first civilization or discovery of mind and gods, in spite of having the same brain formation What the recent studies have indicated is that at that point of time something evolved in brain which didn t exist for other...

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
  • English
  • 02 March 2018
  • Hardcover
  • 384 pages
  • 0393077829
  • V.S. Ramachandran
  • The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human