The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind - Hardcover

Rose, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593019903 ISBN 13: 9780593019900

Publisher: Bantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group), 1992

Synopsis

The human brain weighs, on average, just over two pounds, is wrinkled like a walnut and has the colour and something of the consistency of porridge. Yet somehow the interactions of the ten billion cells that comprise it produce our capacity to think, hope, believe, imagine, and also to remember - to learn and recall, perhaps years later, a face, a tune, a poem or a telephone number. Are there molecules of memory? Can we understand the brain best as a computer? What light do diseases of memory shed on its mechanism? What is it, locked into the interactions of the brain cells and the molecules composing them, that carries the memories which make each person unique? Deciphering this, Steven Rose argues, is the key to interpreting the links between brain and mind. In this book he traces the road to a new understanding of memory that he and other researchers have followed, with all its false turnings and misleading signposts. One of the aims of the book is to explore, through a description of the laboratory life of memory researchers, how scientists, in a world not free from political rivalry, ideology and self-deception, nevertheless strive to answer an important and fascinating question.

About this title

Review

"There is no denying his skill as a writer...a flowing, elegant scientific treatise" (Observer)

"Quite simply one of the most interesting books which I have ever perused" (Scotsman)

"Rose introduces each topic with skill and clarity" (Guardian)

"Exceptionally well-written...a fascinating account of the current state of play in the neurosciences" (Times Higher Educational Supplement)

"Compelling... The job of demystifying science is completed with style, jargon-free and elegantly written" (Oliver Robinson Observer)

Book Description

Winner of the Rhône-Poulenc Science Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group)
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593019903
• ISBN 13: 9780593019900
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368