Brain Story: Why Do We Think and Feel as We Do? - Hardcover

Greenfield, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563551089 ISBN 13: 9780563551089

Publisher: BBC Books, 2000

Synopsis

In this tour through the brain's workings, Susan Greenfield brings the reader right up to date on the latest theories and controversies of neuroscience. From studies of the bizarre and disturbing effects of brain injuries, she tackles the questions that have baffled philosophers since antiquity.

About this title

Review:

Susan Greenfield's book Brain Story is companion to the BBC television series of the same name. It attempts to explain the current state of knowledge in the neurosciences, a discipline that has made stunning advances over the last twenty years. It explores the structure and function of the brain, the myriad ways in which this immensely complex structure can go wrong, and the ingenious methods that research scientists have used to figure out how our signal organ works. Greenfield uses damaged brains, with one everyday function removed, to show how the whole should work. This works to hold our human interest in the stories of those with Alzheimer's, hydrocephalus, brain tumours and other brain function limiting damage, without turning the individuals involved into marginalised freaks.

Like most books in this particular hybrid genre, Brain Story is a glossy, smartly produced coffee-table book, long on illustrations and photographs and short on detail, but an interesting read, nevertheless. As Greenfield admits in the preface "The viewers, we decided, were not about to take an exam in neuroscience, and therefore we did not need detailed or exhaustive facts". Fair enough. But it is interesting to compare Brain Story with other popular science books on the market, including Greenfield's own The Private Life of the Brain and realise the full extent to which science is dumbed down for television audiences. However, as an introduction to the inside of our heads and a tale of great human as well as scientific interest, Brain Story is able to stand alone, even if viewers of the TV series will not find further enlightenment here. -- Chris Lavers

About the Author:

Susan A. Greenfield is Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford. A leading researcher in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, she has broadcast and lectured widely in Great Britain and the United States. She gave the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures in 1994, the first woman to deliver these lectures since they began in 1826. She is author of Journey to the Centers of the Mind, The Human Brain: A Guided Tour and The Private Life of the Brain, and the editor of Mindwaves and Brain Power.

About this edition

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0563551089
• ISBN 13: 9780563551089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208