The Brain: The Story of You

An excellent survey through the megawonder that is the human brain. Eagleman provides illuminating examples of how the brain is able to rewire itself when there is a physical injury. Sometimes there is some technical language, but likely that is to be expected. Some of the effectiveness of the text was blunted since I was reading on a kindle, thus color illustrations are not visible. The book is a guide to the TV series; unfortunately, I have not seen this.

In his earlier illuminating book ‘Incognito’, David Eagleman showed us our hidden selves and challenged us to think about ourselves differently. He continues in that direction in his new book ‘The Brain: The Story of you’ and visualizes the possibilities of the future of the brain and in fact the future of our species. The Singularity is a concept popularized by the well known futurist scientist Ray Kurzweil (refer his book ‘The Singularity is Near’ in 2005) where he envisioned a future where we will be able to leave our bodies and live in a digital world by uploading our brains into a computer system. Kurzweil was pretty much vague on the details but Eagleman in this book shows us how challenging that can be.

With over 100 billion neurons and many trillions of connections among them, the complexity of the brain is unquestionable but understandable. However the fact that ‘consciousness’ emerges from this is the amazing outcome that leaves us in awe. Kurzweil had argued that ‘consciousness’ is a rather natural outcome of a complex interconnected system, and in books like the ‘The Age of Spiritual machines’ it was assumed that soon computers and robots (and may be the Internet) would develop a consciousness.

But as we understand more about the biological nature of the brain and its learning system, we will start doubting whether an artificial system will ever develop consciousness on its own. I don’t doubt that when technology is advanced enough we would be able to create a human like (or a human better) intelligence but I don’t think a machine or AI system can naturally develop consciousness if its creator (that is us) did not train it to.

The best parts of David Eagleman’s book are where he explains (a) how the plasticity of the brain and its self learning ability to understand patterns can be leveraged in the future to provide different inputs to the brain (than the normal sensory inputs that we are born with) (b) how many other inputs that we don’t normally recognize influence our brain – a beautiful example is on how our emotions are influenced by the input to our brain from our facial muscles when we witness an event (c) what will be our future – I leave this for you to read and find out!

I am a neuroscientist, so this book is perfect for the kinds of things that I love to study and think about.
But I do think that this book is written very well for the layperson to understand these amazing and deep mysteries of our brains.
I would highly and strongly also recommend "Incognito" from Eagleman.

Tyson Chappell

Now I understand what they meant by this book being a support for a PBS show. I think it is fine for as an introduction to the topic. If you want neuroscience testing of consciousness and unconsciousness results, I recommend "Consciousness and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene. If you want as philosophical viewpoint I recommend something from David Chalmers.

Mr. Eagleman besides being an accomplished neuroscientist has the capability of guiding us in this wonderful brain tour in simple and exciting terms. I absolutely loved it! It shares some similarities with Cosmos, but is dedicated to this fascinating topic: our brains.

Now I understand what they meant by this book being a support for a PBS show. I think it is fine for as an introduction to the topic. If you want neuroscience testing of consciousness and unconsciousness results, I recommend "Consciousness and the Brain" by Stanislas Dehaene. If you want as philosophical viewpoint I recommend something from David Chalmers.

Mr. Eagleman besides being an accomplished neuroscientist has the capability of guiding us in this wonderful brain tour in simple and exciting terms. I absolutely loved it! It shares some similarities with Cosmos, but is dedicated to this fascinating topic: our brains.

David Eagleman is a celebrated TV presenter and neuroscience professor at Baylor University in Texas who has conducted ground-breaking research, especially in aiding chronic drug-users combat addiction by providing them with real time imaging of their craving and suppression networks, and also in the field of so-called ‘sensory substitution’ by enabling the deaf to hear through development of the ‘Variable Extra Sensory Transducer’ (VEST), a clothing-like device worn around the torso and equipped with tiny detectors to convert sounds into dynamic patterns of vibratory signals. This book is a close, at times almost word for word, transcription of his recent televised series with the same title, i.e. The Brain, and, like the TV version, is a lively, invigorating and highly informative introduction to the subject. Given his hands-on expertise, Eagleman is unsurprisingly at his most eloquent and authoritative when discussing various parts of the brain and their respective functions. Here we learn about vitally important constituents like the parietal cortex (a wide range of functions including reasoning and processing sensory data), the prefrontal cortices (handle learning, abstract thinking, planning and self-control - especially the medial, dorsolateral and ventrolateral areas which regulate self-consciousness, willpower and emotional impulses, take longest to mature and therefore hugely influence the behaviour of young people), the orbitofrontal cortex (recognizes bodily states like hunger, thirst and anxiety), anterior cingulated cortex (monitors performance), hippocampus (enables memorization, especially spatial), cerebellum (responsible for alertness, balance and motor skills), thalamus (refashions sensory processing and regulates consciousness and sleep), hypothalamus (controls energy use and the metabolism), amygdale (reacts to danger, processes pain, fear and aggression), the motor cortex (controls muscles), visual cortex (enables sight), the dopamine-loaded nucleus accumbens (arouses expectations, encourages self-gratification and addiction), the corpus callosum (links the two brain hemispheres) and last but not least, the glial cells (do regular house-keeping operations like brain waste disposal). The reader is introduced to terms like ‘plasticity’ (the brain’s ability to rewire and physically reorganize itself, especially after injury),‘procedural memories’ (repeatedly absorbed information which has become hard-wired into our cerebral circuitry), ‘neural correlation’ (the mapping of firing neurons to our outward behaviour),‘neural reusability’ (requisitioning neurons to help out in multiple brain scenarios), ‘proprioception’ (sensory awareness of our own bodily motion), the ‘binding problem’(how our various sensory inputs – visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and gustatory - get combined into a unified, meaningful impression of external reality), and how ‘sensory transduction’ helps with the binding problem by converting photons (for color recognition), air compression waves (for hearing), scent molecules (for smell) etc. into formats accessible to sensory interpretation. Finally, there are fascinating references to major recent progress in neurological research, in particular techniques like electrode implantation (to transmit mental instructions via computer implants to robotic limbs), sensory substitution (e.g. the VEST already mentioned) to enhance non-existent or defective faculties, TMS (i.e. transcranial magnetic stimulation - which uses magnetic pulses to induce activity in particular places and/or reboot the brain), advanced EEG (i.e. electrocephalography – which measures neural activity using electrodes attached to the scalp to record brain wave frequencies, e.g. alpha (when the brain is at rest), beta (during problem solving), delta (when asleep) and theta (during deep relaxation)), fMRI (i.e. functional magnetic resonance imaging – which creates ultra high-resolution images of cerebral processing from observations of blood flow in the brain), and finally something called ‘serial block-face scanning electron microscopy’ - which assembles scanned images of micro thin slices of the brain (currently only of rats) into a ‘connectome’, i.e. a three-dimensional model of all constituent neuronal connections.

Despite all this very impressive progress which Eagleman dutifully records, it has to be pointed out that neuroscience has so far achieved only a very limited understanding of how the brain actually works. Neural correlation especially has enabled a very thorough identification of areas responsible for a wide range of human behaviour, psychological as well as bodily. But whereas we now know much of what the brain does and where within itself it does what it does, neuroscience has yet to account for how it does what it does, an explanation for consciousness, the ‘hard problem’ par excellence, remaining particularly elusive. Why? Because the holy grail of neurological research – getting to grips with the brain’s internal software, no less – has yet to be realized. In these circumstances, it’s perhaps little exaggeration to say that its practitioners can be likened in some ways to a band of stone age people who, suddenly finding an abandoned car in the desert with the key still in the ignition, start playing with the dashboard controls, pressing switches, turning knobs and pulling levers, carefully noting as they do so that various lights come on and certain engine noises can be heard, some of which dim or stop when, after popping the hood, they yank out the odd cable, unscrew a few caps or drain a fluid reservoir. Do they have a clue about internal combustion, let alone electricity? No way.

Eagleman’s infectious optimism and enthusiasm do much to make up for the reservations I’ve just expressed. They also let him get away with a certain amount of bold exaggeration. Early on in the book for instance, he tells us that instead of experiencing the outside world directly ourselves, we only experience a fabricated model of reality, one seamlessly and instantly assembled by the brain for our sensory benefit. The real world, he says, is ‘colorless, odorless, tasteless and silent’ and the brain must work overtime to compensate for this barren environment by interpreting the various photons, air compression waves, molecular concentrations, pressure, texture and temperature signals it receives into a meaningful representation of external reality. So far, so good, but Eagleman gives insufficient credit to the brain for the superb job it does. All the incoming signals just mentioned are also an integral part of reality and, far from being somewhat of an illusion or a mere ‘show’, the impression of reality the brain puts together is a remarkably, accurate, dependable and consistent one – indeed, it cannot be otherwise because were this the case we would have utterly failed to successfully manage our environment and evolve as a species. It’s certainly no accident that six expert water colorists, for instance, painting exactly the same scene simultaneously from the same position, will record almost exactly the same visual impression – so much for the notion they individually make much of it up in their heads!

Eagleman does make a valiant attempt to tackle the problem of consciousness, but has to fall back ultimately on the old philosophy of mind concept that it’s a mental process which automatically emerges (‘emergentism’) once a sufficient threshold of cerebral complexity is attained. In support of this view, he cites the analogy of a) an engine’s mechanical parts which individually achieve nothing but collectively enable the motor to function and b) that of ants programmed to work seamlessly together for a common purpose, but (a) fails because the mechanical example is non-biological, and b) too because each ant has its own nervous system conferring a limited capability for independent activity. He also cannot seem to make up his mind where consciousness fits within the overall functional hierarchy of the brain, calling it sometimes a ‘passenger’ or ‘stowaway’ and at other times the ‘CEO’ or the ‘driver’. Perhaps it’s best to ask ourselves what the lowest manifestation of consciousness in the natural world actually is. Does an earthworm, for instance, exhibit ‘consciousness’ when it reacts instantly to human touch? Or is such instinctive behaviour to be dismissed merely as that of a primitive nervous system? If so, what is the dividing line between a nervous system and consciousness? Could consciousness be viewed as just a super-highly developed and sophisticated type of nervous system? Eagleman also seems to posit a rigid separation between consciousness and unconsciousness. But is this reasonable? Many of us are sometimes vaguely aware - even when technically asleep - that we are unconscious; we may even remind ourselves during a dream (especially an hour or two before waking up) that it simply is nothing but a dream, enjoy the show and go willingly along for the ride. Maybe consciousness and unconsciousness should be viewed therefore as denoting not two separate but one single process, e.g. like a ‘fade to black’ dimmer light which can go from brightness (full consciousness) to pitch darkness (near total unconsciousness) and vice-versa. In this connection, it should be recognized that one can when fully awake be simultaneously conscious and unconscious – as when one is conscious of talking to someone but unconscious at the same time of another individual, activity or thing close nearby. The verbal ambiguity attaching to the word ‘unconscious’ which this example demonstrates is why the reluctance of contemporary philosophers and neurologists (including Eagleman) to employ the unequivocal Freudian term ‘subconscious’- to denote purely our mental activity which takes place either when one is asleep or which one is not consciously aware of when awake - is to be deeply regretted.

A most interesting point in the book is that whereas newly born animals come invariably hard-wired with an extensive range of survival skills to cope with their new environment, the human baby is virtually unequipped at birth to do so. Instead, it must learn these skills as quickly as possible through trial and error. Two million new synapses, i.e. neuronal connections, are therefore formed every second in the infant brain, resulting in a hundred trillion by age 2 - twice that of an adult; hence parental nurturing and interaction with the outside world are vitally important for its early development. Neural pathways consisting of countless new strings of neurons are constantly built to reference and represent this newly acquired knowledge as we develop, a process which slows down dramatically after we reach maturity and which is accompanied by a progressive withering away and discarding of pathways which have lapsed into disuse. This is all great stuff, but once again Eagleman goes overboard by inferring that just because young people necessarily undergo a deep and sustained process of social interaction to learn about the world and grow up, all the rest of us should do the same in order to maintain our mental fitness and lead fulfilling lives – 'who you are is where you’ve been’ is how he sums it up. Yes, it’s obviously important to exercise our minds and bodies as much as possible and not to switch off and shut down as we age, but do we need the constant interactive proximity of others to succeed in doing so? Possibly he is unaware of the long and noble tradition of asceticism in both western and eastern culture, especially as practised by the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece, by members of isolated, desert-based communities like the Essenes in Palestine, and by hermetic early Christian (especially Irish) and Tibetan Buddhist monks. All these adherents believed extreme self-denial and physical isolation from others to be the best route to heightened consciousness, inner peace, emotional satisfaction and contentment.

Eagleman concludes his account with a brief survey of how neuroscience might benefit from anticipated progress in artificial intelligence and automation. Here, he cannot be blamed for an over-optimistic outlook (haven’t advances in these fields already done wonders for our understanding of how the brain works and enabled its capabilities to be enhanced and extended in hitherto undreamt of ways?). Yet a sober appreciation of the sinister downside of runaway AI and robotics would not have come amiss: as Asimov, Kurzweil, Hawking and others have repeatedly emphasized, therein lies the road to our future obsolescence and possible ultimate extinction as a species.

Chatty but good on anatomy/physiology. Too focused on "mind without body", are we so interested in being on remote stars without our bodies or multitasking on other side of the earth whilst driving a car?

"The Brain" by David Eagleman, "Heart of the machine" by Richard Yonk, and "The god delusion" by Richard Dawkins, are the best three books I have recently read that prove rationally and intelligently that the existence of god is a fallacy, and that education, science and technology can prove that god and religious beliefs are just plain ignorance.
Van Gonima
New York

Short and concise analytical composure on human brain. Easy to read. Explains issues on brain functionality, cognitive behaviours, identity, to how the future can embrace and explore enhancement by the power of the brain.

The insights that neuroscience has afforded in its progress over the last fifty or so years is presented extremely well in this very accessible book. The author does an excellent job at discussing important areas of the science that awaken us to the splendor of this organ, which, in complexity, is quite possibly the most stunning element we humans have encountered yet in this strange universe of wonders. Professor Eagleman also discusses poignantly and lucidly a number of philosophical matters that are also very interesting and bear on the science. Although I have had some prior contact with neuroscience, I found that his discussion, in its wide range and sophistication, was very helpful, and I learned a fair amount from reading this book. As a book oriented toward the educated public, and written in a compelling and educational way, I can highly recommend this book. It is among the best of such books I have read related to biology, and the discoveries uncovered about the brain by science.

A quickly written short book
If one just delves into a general brain/neuroscience book then this book is good first read. But for someone like me who had already read quite a few books on brain/neuroscience this book is just okay. The book also suffers from a want of word/phrase index with page reference no. It is hastily written, without the author spending sufficient time on collecting material and regurgitating them in more meaningful ways.
I read The Brain's Way Of Healing by Norman Doidge, who I believe would have done a better justice to the collected material. For Cameron Mott there is Michelle Mack, with complementary hemispheres absent. The two provide an interesting comparative case study.
Doidge's books have a 'sit, slow down and ruminate the story' approach. This present book is more of the short notes variety. The pages of informative discussions are also limited to around 223.
What is special about the book is the treatment on augmented abilities, artificial intelligence and artificial brain in the last chapter, and the time-line for future fulfilment of these objectives.

Hello my friends,
A lot of you are educators, have kids, work in the social sciences, dance teachers, have brains of your own and/or are struggling with your own health issues-- Have you read this book yet?

Yes, it's nonfiction and yes, it's about my recent favorite obsession, the eggplant between my ears. (I have pictures of my brain during surgery, a live brain isn't grey. The "little grey cells" were the injured or dead cells. A healthy live brain is eggplant colored, hence my favorite nickname for my healing brain.) No, it is not dull and boring. No it is not full of hopelessly technical medical jargon. Well there is a little, but you don't need it to follow the author's ideas, because the medical terms are more like places on a map where things happen, and what is happening there is interesting.

I have the audiobook (because due to the injury to my cochlear-ocular nerve my right eye does not track, so I am now an audiobook reader. ) And because I am recovering from neurological injury (second time in my life, year two of round two) it's a subject that I am driven to explore. But this audiobook is really well read and well makes a potentially dry subject very animated. Would make a good car book for those who drive 30 plus min per day.. Lots to learn about how and why people tick, yourself, you child, your students, your clients, your friends... it's a good listen.

Huge recommendation!

Review “The Brain” David Eagleman 19.05.2016

Sometimes when I have to review a book I can simply summarize the contents, describe the essence, add my comments, and pass on. Sometimes, as with Colin Lazarus’s book “The Brain” the realization goes so deep that I have to pause and dig deeper, so that I can explain to myself, as well as others, the different essentials of those essences.
I always felt that there are three areas in my life that I cannot omit to full life. These are the natural science, philosophy, various religions and music. After choosing these areas, then extensions and cross-connections in other areas arise by itself. This book is popular science at its best. Accessible, enlightening and fun to read.
But let me start with some sarcasm: “The fact that the jellyfish have survived 650 million years despite not having brains is great news for stupid people. It’s not that people use only 10% of their brains, it’s that only 10% of people use their brains.”
The human brain is a fascinating topic of neuroscience presented by David Eagleman even in TV. The book is full of colorful illustrations that complement the excellent narrative.
As Colin mentioned in his review, there are interesting facts spruced throughout the book. For example, as many as two million new connections, or synapses, are formed every second in an infant’s brain. By age two, a child has over one hundred trillion synapses, double the number an adult has. There also is a good description of the teen’s brain. Beyond social awkwardness and emotional hypersensitivity, the teen brain is set up to take risks. I don’t want really extend Colin’s review, but I want to take another perspective.
Most interesting is a close look at willpower. “…willpower isn’t something that we just exercise – it’s something we deplete. Scientists think they can prove that free will is an illusion. Philosophers are urging them to think again. We are looking at the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.
As expected, a book this succinct will leave some interesting neuroscientific topics on the table. Unfortunately the topic of free will in this book gets slightly shortchanged.
The story of Charles Whitman is quite enlightening with major repercussions on a society that values evidence. Shortly after killing his mother, his wife and others Charles Withman sat down and typed what amounted to a suicide note: After my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there is any visible physical disorder. The request was granted.

After an autopsy, the pathologist reported that Whitman had a small brain tumor. It was pressing against a part of his brain called amygdala, which is involved in fear and aggression. This small amount of pressure led to a cascade of consequences in Whitman’s brain, resulting in him taking actions that would otherwise be completely out of character.
For many philosophers, to believe in free will is to believe that human beings can be the authors of their own actions and to reject the idea that human actions are determined by external conditions or fate. (Determinism, fatalism and predestination)

You may have thought you decided whether to have tea or coffee this morning, for example, but the decision may have been made long before you were aware of it. For myself, this is unsettling. I'll be very honest, I find it very difficult to deal with this. How can I call a will 'mine' if I don't even know when it occurred and what it has decided to do?
"I think - therefor I am" said Descartes. He assumed that an immaterial soul exist separately from the brain. Descartes never got to wander a neurology ward. If he had, he would have seen that when brain change, people’s personality change. Free will change as well?
Finally. I find out, that a lot of people enjoy technically only two things:
Serotonin and Dopamine. Bothe are Neurotransmitter.
Serotonin is regarded by some researchers as a chemical that is responsible for maintaining mood balance, and that a deficit of serotonin leads to depression. Most importantly Serotonin is contributing to wellbeing and happiness.
Dopamine is love. Dopamine is lust. Dopamine is disloyalty. Dopamine is motivation. Dopamine is attention.
“The Brain, the story of you” is a good read and I recommend.

I received the hardback version as a Christmas present in 2015. I read it within a matter of days. I've read a lot of non-fiction regarding psycholgy and social sciences. This is something a little different as it goes into the structure of the brain and how the physical components work. I found it fascinating. It's extremely well written, it explains the concepts of neuroscience in an entertaining and informative manner. Highly recommended.

This is by far the most interesting non-fiction book I have ever read. The insight into how our unique brains form the world we know and the person we are is absolutely fascinating. The author has written so the average person can easily understand the material while keeping it interesting enough for people with medical knowledge like myself. I've recommended it to everyone.

This really makes you appreciate what is going on inside of your brain & your body. This book really gives your brain a lot to think about! I especially enjoyed the last chapter. I am a bit disappointed there was little to no mention about "gut feelings & reactions" or intuition. I still enjoyed this book very much and recommend it.

I bought this book in an airport before on overseas flight to pass the time on the plane. It ended up being a great book. It's very easy to follow and gives wonderful understanding of how the brain works and how it our perspective on everyday life. I could not put it down. This is the best popular science book that I have read since The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

The march of progress moves on, and tends to trample upon a different side of science, the original version, which was not so much about new iPhones and apps as about recognizing the stark infinity of our ignorance, and the intrinsic value of wonder, the drive to press out into the darkness, expanding the frontier and increasing our ability to experience further wonder. These days, many people done even understand this task as science, as it doesn't require a lab coat, but David Eagleman is here to remind us of what inquiry is all about.

It would be genuinely hard to exaggerate how poorly thought out this book is. It's only intention appears to be to dazzle the uninitiated reader with melodramatic nonsense of the workings of the mind.

After reading this book,went on to David Eagleman's website to ask a question regarding something from his book that I needed a clarification on.
Clicked the 'Contact' tab and typed my question. His assistant (Sean Judge) replied and confirmed he'll pass this message on to David E. A week passed and never heard back; so I inquired with Sean as to what's going on - is David E intending to reply back? He responded, "I'm sorry, his schedule is so busy that he's not going to be able to respond". What upsets me is, then why have a 'contact' tab if you're not going to respond. I replied back to Sean, "Just a feedback (and please pass this on to him) -- nothing makes a person look as 'bad' as having a website with 'contact' tab but then not responding to a simple question. I've been watching him on YouTube and just finished his book 'Brain'. However, for him not to respond to a simple question shows a bit of 'arrogance' on his part (and not a 'time issue'). I guess he may as well change the 'contact' tab to 'only contact me if you're willing to hire/book me for an event and our willing to pay me' - 'otherwise don't bother me'!! I think David E is more of a 'showman' who'd rather make stage performances than answer a reader's inquiry.

This is a nice sum up of Neuroscience discoveries of the last 40 years . I believe Mr Eagleman had made a nice summary of what Carol Dwerk, Susan Greenfield, Norman Doidge and other neuroscientists have spoke for years.

Personally I did not found any new information, but for someone who is really not familiar with neuroscience, this is a good start.

The book left open the question of cognitive evolution from the time of Lucy to today. Neurologists giving the standard Huntington's disease genetic test to healthy volunteers and observed an average CAG repeat of 17. Higher CAGs mean more risk of getting the disease, and the length goes up, not down. Experiments show a causal relation between CAG length and the amount of grey matter. So Lucy, with a smaller brain size, likely had shorter Huntingtin gene.

The Economist reported on this in spring 2015.

Recommended reading if you are interested in knowing what makes you who you are and where we are possibly going as a species. It helps put the issues society is currently facing into perspective. Easy to read and understand.