Mapping the Mind - Softcover

Carter, Rita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520224612 ISBN 13: 9780520224612

Publisher: University of California Press, 1999

Synopsis

Today a brain scan reveals our thoughts, moods, and memories as clearly as an X-ray reveals our bones. We can actually observe a person's brain registering a joke or experiencing a painful memory. Drawing on the latest imaging technology and the expertise of distinguished scientists, Rita Carter explores the geography of the human brain. Her writing is clear, accessible, witty, and the book's 150 illustrations—most in color—present an illustrated guide to that wondrous, coconut-sized, wrinkled gray mass we carry inside our heads.

Mapping the Mind charts the way human behavior and culture have been molded by the landscape of the brain. Carter shows how our personalities reflect the biological mechanisms underlying thought and emotion and how behavioral eccentricities may be traced to abnormalities in an individual brain. Obsessions and compulsions seem to be caused by a stuck neural switch in a region that monitors the environment for danger. Addictions stem from dysfunction in the brain's reward system. Even the sense of religious experience has been linked to activity in a certain brain region. The differences between men and women's brains, the question of a "gay brain," and conditions such as dyslexia, autism, and mania are also explored.

Looking inside the brain, writes Carter, we see that actions follow from our perceptions, which are due to brain activity dictated by a neuronal structure formed from the interplay between our genes and the environment. Without sidestepping the question of free will, Carter suggests that future generations will use our increasing knowledge of the brain to "enhance those mental qualities that give sweetness and meaning to our lives, and to eradicate those that are destructive."

About this title

About the Author

Rita Carter is a medical writer for the Independent, New Scientist, Daily Mail, Telegraph, and other British publications and was twice awarded the Medical Journalists' Association prize for outstanding contributions to medical journalism. She lives in Ashford, England.
The general consultant for Mapping the Mind is Christopher Frith, Professor in Neuropsychology, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology. The contributors include Simon Baron-Cohen, Francis Crick, Antonio Damasio, Uta Frith, Richard Gregory, Joseph LeDoux, Sir Roger Penrose, John Maynard Smith, Steven Rose and other leading researchers in brain science.

Reviews

"Mapping the Mind is an up-to-date, easy to read, gorgeously produced happy hybrid of textbook and coffee table tome....This book is a reminder of the enormous strides knowledge has made in the past three decades....Carter does a good job in describing how over the millions of years of hominid evolution the needs of survival have selected and shaped the features of the nervous system....Having a map is essential for any new journey. Thus Mapping the Mind is a welcome new aid."

"Rita Carter recounts comprehensively, aided by an abundance of illustrations, what has been discovered about brain structure and function."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the brain and love:"The feelings of euphoria associated with early stages of love seem to be brought about by a combination of dopamine and a chemical called phenylethylamine. . . . Bonding--both sexual and between parent and child--seems to be brought about largely by the action in the brain of a hormone called oxytocin. . . . Countless psychological studies have shown that people in the throes of this hormonal storm are more than usually divorced from reality, particularly when it comes to making assessments about the person they love. . . . Looked at coldly, romantic love is a chemically induced form of madness and a terrible basis for social organization . . . [but] from the brain's point of view it is just about the biggest thrill there is."

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520224612
• ISBN 13: 9780520224612
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224