This New York writer suffers from the peculiar terrifying affliction called sleep paralysis in which the brain becomes alert but the body remains in sleep mode, unable to move for a variable length of time, This book may in part be the product of that bizarre experience which lead him into wanting to know more about how the brain works. He starts with how two anatomists proved, with the death of King Henri II of France, in1559 that countercoup blows to the head can be fatal without any skull fracture or direct injury to the brain by an outside force.
The author approaches the subject matter here very logically, with a build up from individual cells, to how they communicate, to clusters, networks, circuits, columns, specialized areas of the brain and the integrated circuitry of the whole brain, spinal column, and peripheral nerves.
The crossed wiring leading to synesthesia, the phenomenon of seeing sounds, smelling sights, etc, is very well explained. The large number of amputees from the American Civil War lead to intense (but not quite ‘duelling’) debates leading to some enlightenment about the basis of phantom limb sensations such as intense pain or itching. And there are the bizarre documented episodes of phantom penises experiencing erections and ejaculations! The suggestion that foot fetishes occur commonly because the main foot and genital areas represented in the sensory and motor cortex of the brain are adjacent and their wiring may get crossed in a mild form of synesthesia seems intriguing. The bizarre sexual urges of some victims of brain injuries is puzzling, as is the criminal sexual predation apparently ‘caused’ in rare patients by use of the drug L-Dopa, widely used in treating Parkinson’s disease.
The 45 page discussion of the adventures of the rogue American Nobel laureate (who was also a pedophile) D. Carlton Gajduesk in the highlands of New Guinea and his discovery of the misfolded protein causing the now-eradicated Kuru in cannibalistic natives, along with other scientists later extending this line of research to explain scrapie in sheep, mad cow disease in bovines and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans is clear and fascinating.
The emphasis of the legendary volatile Baltimore neurosurgeon, Harvey Cushing, on the brain’s control over many functions via hormones secreted by the brains southern peninsula, the pituitary gland, was controversial in the early twentieth century but opened up the whole new field of neuroendocrinology. Wilder Penfield, founder of the world-famous Montreal Neurological Institute pioneered surgical treatment of increasing precision in the treatment of epilepsy.
A chapter on memory and recall distinguishes several subtypes, and goes some distance to explain the anatomical bases for them and why our memories are sometimes faulty. Some types of memory loss such as in Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome are accompanied by confabulations to hide the deficit. From personal experience with such individuals, I can attest to the fact that those confabulations can be very elaborate and convincing.
The discussion of the parts of the brain that are mainly responsible for speech was of particular interest to me since one of my early academic publications as a medical student reported the results of a study I did with my neurologist/teacher, Dr. Andrew Kertesz, on localization of lesions producing speech disorders, differentiating expressive and receptive aphasia in stroke patients, in the late 1960s. In emphasizing the diversity of centres used in language skills, Kean writes “ There’s no neurologic ‘pantry’ where we keep our words.”
Myriad victims of brain injuries have inadvertently contributed in many ways to the advancement of neuroscience and the localization of specialized areas of the brain. Some of those injuries result in beliefs and actions of the victims that make any fairy tale seem realistic. For example, people with Capgras syndrome firmly believe that parts of their bodies or people around them have been replaced by doubles, even denying their own identity in a mirror. Victims with the Cotard delusion are sure that they are dead, even as they chat with the living from beyond the grave.
Kean confronts the issue of free will directly by stating categorically that “Free will is a retrospective illusion, however convincing.” but expands on this in a postscript conversation to say that “…no matter what we do, we’ll always feel like we have free will.” With respect to locating the seat of consciousness in the brain, he writes that “Consciousness isn’t a thing in a place; it’s a process in a population.” In other words, “..consciousness isn’t localized; it emerges only when multiple parts of the brain hum in harmony.”
Some of the most intriguing information about neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and neuropharmacology and the happenstance history of discoveries in those fields is found in the referenced notes at the end of the main text. I have included those in the the number of pages I calculated. And some of the ‘neurosurgeons’ of the title are nineteenth century grave robbers, barbers, zoologists, and philosophers dabbling in studies of the brain.
I do not understand the mathematical diagrams at the start of each of the twelve chapters and found one obvious typo: “Elliot was a good people.” Not bad for a book of this length.
You do not need to be a neuroscientist nor have any medical background to enjoy this clearly- written, well-illustrated, educational, and humorous discussion of some of the most bizarre thoughts, beliefs, and actions that human beings have ever engaged in. Apt metaphors give the brain attributes of a whole being, including being in error as when the brain thinks that the amputated limb is still functioning as part of the body.
You may snicker with a whiff of schadenfreude (the enjoyment of others misery) as you read this book, but no reader knows what brain ailment may await them to make them the subject of some future brain researcher and perhaps have another peculiar syndrome named after them.
3.5/5
Thanks, BookBub.
Cam
The Passionate Reader 