Seeing the Mind: Spectacular Images from Neuroscience, and What They Reveal about Our Neuronal Selves

A lavishly illustrated and accessibly explained deep dive into the major new findings from cognitive neuroscience.

Who are we? To this age-old question, contemporary neuroscience gives a simple answer: we are exquisite neuronal machines. Each of our dreams, thoughts, and feelings arises from a pattern of activity in our brain. In Stanislas Dehaene’s Seeing the Mind, we learn not only that the mind maps onto the brain, but that it is just a complex electrical motif on the tapestry of our neurons. In this richly illustrated and highly accessible book, Dehaene uses the power of brain images to tell the story of centuries-old efforts to understand who we are, and how it is possible that our thoughts emerge from just three pounds of flesh.

Seeing the Mind is divided into one hundred topics, each described by a spectacular full-page color image and, on the facing page, a brief text that explains what this image means and why it matters. By weaving together images and text, the book brings readers into the intimacy of their own brains. As Dehaene explains, “All the gorgeous biological processes that you are about to discover are taking place, right now, inside your own brain.” 

A modern cabinet of curiosities, Seeing the Mind is an intriguing and memorable read that will astonish readers with a direct, face-to-face meeting with themselves—and with the material stuff of their thoughts and dreams.

Stanislas Dehaene is Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France and Director of NeuroSpin, France’s advanced brain imaging research center. He is the author of The Number Sense, Reading in the Brain, Consciousness and the Brain, and How We Learn. Together his books have been translated into more than fifteen languages.