Synopses & Reviews
What is consciousness? Is there really such a thing as free will? Is there a physiological basis for an eternal soul?For most of our history, the brain and its workings have been hidden from view. Barely a century ago, phrenologythe study of personality based on bumps on the headwas in vogue. But after generations of speculation, we are finally getting our first glimpse of the mind. In What Makes You Tick?, Thomas Czerners elegant and accessible introduction to brain research, youll encounter the scientists and discoveries that have exponentially increased our knowledge of the brain and its functions, most significantly in the last few years. Here, Czerner has translated the arcane language of scientific journals into a highly readable Baedeker of the brain, outlining all that is known about the modern brain and the amazing promise this understanding holds for the future. Among the many breakthroughs reported:
- Contrary to conventional wisdom (and perhaps anecdotal evidence), thousands of new neurons arrive at your frontal lobes every day.
- Sight has been discovered to involve all kinds of moving parts, from visual pigment that actually springs into action with the arrival of photons, to channels in brain cell walls that slam shut once they get the message.
- Our daily experiences, according to recent experiments by Nobel laureates TorstenWiesel and David Hubel, can literally change our minds, rerouting paths that were once believed to be hard-wired
In addition to tracing the vast web of cerebral roadways, Czerner deftly follows the larger historical detective story that stars neurologists and their forebears, from philosophers Descartes and Kant, to twentieth-century polymaths Francis Crick and Edwin Land, to computer scientists, who have found that the brains parallel circuitry offers an ideal design model for microprocessors (though the computer has a long way to go). By shining a light on the darkest recesses of our own minds, What Makes You Tick? illuminates the greatest gifts the world of science bestows, in addition to touching on the ethical dilemmas facing us as we begin to alter ourselves on the cellular level. Above all, What Makes You Tick? will forever change the way you think about thinking.
Review
"...I would highly recommend this book..." (Chemistry & Industry, 17 December 2001)
Synopsis
This beautifully written narrative tour of the brain explains discoveries made in brain science over the past 30 years that has led to a new understanding of how the mind works, at a reading level that makes it easy to understand and entertaining. Line drawings.
Synopsis
The Brain in Plain English"Nearly everything we know about the constellations of neurons in the brain we have learned in the past few decades, most of that only within the last few years, and the pace is picking up briskly. . . . Researchers in more than a dozen disciplines are asking Platos question: How does your internal representation of the world relate to the objective world outside? How does the electrochemical music of the neuron form perceptions, memories, and knowledge? How does it create the mystifying, subjective sense of a you within you, and how does it direct your individual and social behavior? Science has joined philosophy in this accelerating effort to define what it means to be alive, and to find the wellspring of our humanity.
"The aim of this book is to provide a frame of reference from which to appreciate the exciting advances in neuroscience that appear with increasing frequency on the nightly news. It describes what we know about the brain, how we found out, and what this may mean for the future."from What Makes You Tick?
Synopsis
What is consciousness?
Is there really such a thing as free will?
Is there a physiological basis for an eternal soul?
In What Makes You Tick?, Thomas Czerner's elegant and accessible introduction to brain research, you'll encounter the scientists and discoveries that have exponentially increased our knowledge of the brain and its functions, most significantly in the last few years. Here, Czerner has translated the arcane language of scientific journals into a highly readable Baedeker of the brain, outlining all that is known about the modern brain and the amazing promise this understanding holds for the future.
In addition to tracing the vast web of cerebral roadways, Czerner deftly follows the larger historical detective story that stars neurologists and their forebears, from philosophers Descartes and Kant, to twentieth-century polymaths Francis Crick and Edwin Land, to computer scientists, who have found that the brain's parallel circuitry offers an ideal design model for microprocessors.
By shining a light on the darkest recesses of our own minds, What Makes You Tick? illuminates the greatest gifts the world of science bestows, in addition to touching on the ethical dilemmas facing us as we begin to alter ourselves on the cellular level. Above all, What Makes You Tick? will forever change the way you think about thinking.
About the Author
THOMAS B. CZERNER, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco and is a senior faculty consultant of the Ophthalmology Residency Training Program at the California Pacific Medical Center.
Table of Contents
Preface.
Introduction.
Exploring a Recently Discovered Galaxy: Off to See the Wizard.
Stardust and the Music of the Neuron: Impulses and How They Move You.
The Ghost in the Machine: The Elusive Homunculus.
The Photon and Your Brain: Your Quiet Conversation with Nature.
The Intelligence of the Neuron: Your Life Depends on the Decisons of Individual Cells.
The Moving Parts of Your Brain: The Photon Illuminates the Lilliputian Machinery of the Neuron.
The Yellow Brick Road: To Your Biological Clock and Internal Maps of the Universe.
The Emerald City: The Secrets of the Most Complex Functions of the Brain.
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: The Brain Is a Supercomputer and Much, Much More.
The Shape of an Idea: Neuronal Ensembles.
Pure Wizardry: Matching Your Behavior to Your Situation.
Your Personal Chemistry: From Molecules to Moods and from Genes to Behavior.
The Final Chord.
Notes.
Index.