Synopses & Reviews
The average human brain weighs three pounds--80 percent of which is water--and yet it's capable of outstripping the computational and storage capacities of the most complex computer. But how the mind works remains one of humankind's greatest mysteries.
With boundless curiosity and enthusiasm, Shannon Moffett, a Stanford medical student, takes us down the halls of neuroscience to the front lines of cutting-edge research and medicine to meet some of today's most extraordinary scientists and thinkers, all grappling with provocative questions: Why do we dream? How does memory work? How do we see? What happens when we think?
Each chapter delves into a different aspect of the brain, following the experts as they chart new ground. Moffett takes us to a lab where fMRI scans reveal the multitude of stimuli that our brains unconsciously take in; inside an operating room where a neurosurgeon removes a bullet from a patient's skull; to the lab of Christof Koch, a neuroscientist tracking individual neurons in order to crack the code of consciousness; and to a research lab where scientists are investigating the relationship between dreams and waking life. She also takes us beyond the scientific world--to a Zen monk's zendo, where she explores the effects of meditation on the brain; inside the home of a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder; to a conference with the philosopher Daniel Dennett, who uses illusions, magic, tricks, and logic to challenge our assumptions about the mind; and to the home of the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer with James Watson of DNA's double-helix structure.
Filled with fascinating case studies and featuring a timeline that tracks the development of the brain from conception to death, The Three Pound Enigma is a remarkable exploration of what it means to be human.
Synopsis
Can we know something without being aware that we know it? How does someone with severe amnesia still recognize himself in the mirror? How are we able to erase a traumatic event from our memory? And, how, at only three pounds (80 percent of which is only water), does the human brain give rise to consciousness? How is it capable of outstripping the computational and storage capacities of the most complex computer?
To many of us, the human brain is a mystery. To Shannon Moffett, a Stanford medical student, and to the experts she’s interviewed, it is an irresistible enigma. Moffett takes us down the halls of neuroscience to the front lines of cutting-edge research and medicine to meet some of today’s most extraordinary minds, including
• Dr. Roberta Glick, a neurosurgeon who takes us into the operating room to remove a bullet lodged in a patient’s skull;
• Dr. John Gabrieli, a cognitive neuroscientist who illustrates how and where in the brain we experience emotion;
• neuroscientist Dr. Christof Koch, who worked with the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and is on a quest to find the cellular basis of consciousness by studying how we see;
• Dr. Robert Stickgold, a pioneer in dream research who shows how waking life influences dreaming life and vice versa.
With illustrations and extraordinary case histories, The Three-Pound Enigmais engaging, enlightening, and thought-provoking.
About the Author
Shannon Moffett graduated from NYU with a B.A. She is currently a medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine, where shes received two Stanford Arts and Humanities Medical Scholars grants. This is her first book.