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Brainscapes: The Warped, Wondrous Maps Written in Your Brain—And How They Guide You Kindle Edition
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A path-breaking journey into the brain, showing how perception, thought, and action are products of maps etched into your gray matter—and how technology can use them to read your mind
Your brain is a collection of maps. That is no metaphor: scrawled across your brain’s surfaces are actual maps of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival. Scientists first began uncovering these maps over a century ago, but we are only now beginning to unlock their secrets—and comprehend their profound impact on our lives. Brain maps distort and shape our experience of the world, support complex thought, and make technology-enabled mind reading a modern-day reality, which raises important questions about what is real, what is fair, and what is private. They shine a light on our past and our possible futures. In the process, they invite us to view ourselves from a startling new perspective.
In Brainscapes, Rebecca Schwarzlose combines unforgettable real-life stories, cutting-edge research, and vivid illustrations to reveal brain maps’ surprising lessons about our place in the world—and about the world’s place within us.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMariner Books
- Publication dateJune 15, 2021
- File size17142 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Schwarzlose’s presentation of cutting-edge science is consistently accessible and concise, as is her historical perspective on early brain research... This is deeply enjoyable and thoroughly researched." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"The scope of the book is staggering, as is the potential of technology's role in decoding minds, and yet Schwarzlose successfully and enthusiastically relays the research in relevant, understandable, and absorbing language." —Kirkus
"[A] potentially dense and impenetrable subject [that] is illuminated and rendered comprehensible in Schwarzlose’s skilled hands. A fascinating in-depth exploration of the maps contained within our brains." —Library Journal
“Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist with a novelist's literary flair. Brainscapes is a profoundly illuminating account of how the brain works—and of how the maps within our heads determine what we see, recognize, remember, and feel. It’s about miracles, and it’s a complete inspiration.”—Cass R. Sunstein, author of Too Much Information
“This book is the Lonely Planet travel guide to the brain. With humility, humor, and the familiarity of a local, Rebecca Schwarzlose takes you by the hand and shows you around some of the strangest landscapes of the cortex. In Brainscapes, the brain becomes an open atlas, full of illuminating maps—just one of many enlightening metaphors in this meticulously documented and artfully decorated book.”—Stanislas Dehaene, author of How We Learn and Consciousness and the Brain
“In lively prose, Schwarzlose introduces you to your inner cartographer: a complex brain that continuously constructs shifting maps of the world, charted from the perspective of your own body. These maps are not just created by you—they are you. They conjure what you feel, what you remember, and what you do.”—Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
“In Brainscapes, Rebecca Schwarzlose takes the reader on a journey through the brain by explaining all the ways it uses ‘maps’ to help us experience the world and act in it. I thoroughly enjoyed this broad in scope, and beautifully written, book.”—Joseph LeDoux, author of The Deep History of Ourselves
“A beautiful book about one of the most fundamental properties of the brain—its ability as a mapmaker. The meat in our heads organizes and controls everything we do, from perception to emotion, action to cognition, by mapping complex information into simple spaces. Brainscapes explains that deep truth in clear, compelling language. It’s a fascinating, well-told story, worth the read.”—Michael Graziano, author of Rethinking Consciousness
"Brainscapes will change how you think about the brain and how you understand your own mind. This is a fascinating and original exploration of the physical principles that enable you to do all that you do, and be who you are."—Tali Sharot, author of The Influential Mind
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B08B3CFXCD
- Publisher : Mariner Books (June 15, 2021)
- Publication date : June 15, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 17142 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 321 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #158,508 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #60 in Neuropsychology (Kindle Store)
- #79 in Alzheimer's Disease
- #97 in Neuroscience (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Rebecca Schwarzlose is a cognitive neuroscientist studying the developing brain at Washington University in Saint Louis. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from M.I.T. and served as chief editor of the scholarly journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences for three years. She has been obsessed with both writing and the mind since she was a girl. She now finds beauty in the brain’s capacity to represent and distill the big, wide world.
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The book details how brainmaps were discovered, how they function, and how they develop. Throughout, Schwarzlose deftly weaves clear examples and stories that demonstrate how the brain functions without lapsing into over-simplification or use of overly complicated jargon. She has a real gift for turns of phrase that explain concepts to lay people in an accurate and entertaining manner. Illustrations throughout the book further clarify and solidify concepts.
Most importantly, the author is able to convey and share her love of the subject matter and to make the reader share in her wonder and appreciation. I gained a sense of awe for the everyday miracles performed by my own mind. After reading, I will never think about thinking, perceiving, remembering, or perceiving my world the same way.
After that, the book gets better. It's pretty dense, with lots of fascinating and detailed information. I wouldn't call it easy to read—if anything, the author's tendency to overexplain made it harder to read. Yet overall, the prose is pretty clear, and the subject matter interesting.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
This book is all about brain maps, the ways the neurons in your brain are interconnected to represent data about the outside world, and how these maps affect your perceptions of the world around you. Rebecca Schwarzloze is a cognitive neuroscientist, and she excels at explaining the complex functions of the brain, in language that is easy for a non-scientist to understand. She takes the time to use many different examples and analogies to help paint a clear picture of how the brain is representing the information it receives about the outside world. There are twelve main chapters, in which Schwarzlose explains different types brain maps, how they work, why they exist, how they can change, and finally how we have learned to use technology to read and write to these brain maps.
In the first chapter Schwarzlose explains how the first brain maps were discovered by a Japanese scientist studying blindness caused by bullet wounds to the heads of soldiers. The precise measurements of where the brain was damaged, and what visual impairments the soldier had as a result, allowed for a basic understanding of where exactly incoming visual data is mapped onto the brain.
In subsequent chapters, Schwarzlose explains why brain maps exist, and how different brain maps allow you to respond to different sensory inputs. The chapter I enjoyed the most dealt with the technology of brain-computer interfaces, and what they can and cannot do. The ability to decode brain maps in order to determine what sensory data someone is receiving, or to allow for brain-damaged patients to control prosthetic limbs, is all fascinating technology that has so much untapped potential.
This was such an informative and well-written book, and I was very impressed with how well these concepts were explained with everyday examples. Schwarzlose is an excellent communicator, and we need more scientists like this that are able to spread their amazing discoveries to a wider audience.