Brain, Vision, Memory: Tales in the History of Neuroscience

Gross, Charles G.

ISBN 10: 0262571358 / ISBN 13: 9780262571357

Published by Bradford Books / The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1998

About this Item

Wrappers. Black spine and rear cover, artwork front cover are all clean and bright. Light rubbing at the head and tail of the spien and a nearly unnoticable trace of rubbing at the very tips of the outside corners. Small strip of wide clear tape wrapped around the head of hte spine. Binding is straight and tight. Pages are all clean, white, and crisp. 255 pages. Illustrated with period diagrams. Tight and clean.

Seller Inventory # 010313

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Brain, Vision, Memory: Tales in the History of Neuroscience
• Publisher: Bradford Books / The MIT Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262571358
• ISBN 13: 9780262571357
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Edition: 5th Printing.
• Condition: VG+
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science & Nature

About this title

Synopsis

In these engaging tales describing the growth of knowledge about the brain—from the early Egyptians and Greeks to the Dark Ages and the Renaissance to the present time—Gross attempts to answer the question of how the discipline of neuroscience evolved into its modern incarnation through the twists and turns of history.

Charles G. Gross is an experimental neuroscientist who specializes in brain mechanisms in vision. He is also fascinated by the history of his field. In these tales describing the growth of knowledge about the brain from the early Egyptians and Greeks to the present time, he attempts to answer the question of how the discipline of neuroscience evolved into its modern incarnation through the twists and turns of history.

The first essay tells the story of the visual cortex, from the first written mention of the brain by the Egyptians, to the philosophical and physiological studies by the Greeks, to the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, and finally, to the modern work of Hubel and Wiesel. The second essay focuses on Leonardo da Vinci's beautiful anatomical work on the brain and the eye: was Leonardo drawing the body observed, the body remembered, the body read about, or his own dissections? The third essay derives from the question of whether there can be a solely theoretical biology or biologist; it highlights the work of Emanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century Swedish mystic who was two hundred years ahead of his time. The fourth essay entails a mystery: how did the largely ignored brain structure called the "hippocampus minor" come to be, and why was it so important in the controversies that swirled about Darwin's theories? The final essay describes the discovery of the visual functions of the temporal and parietal lobes. The author traces both developments to nineteenth-century observations of the effect of temporal and parietal lesions in monkeys—observations that were forgotten and subsequently rediscovered.

About the Author

Charles G. Gross, a neuroscientist specializing in vision and the functions of the cerebral cortex, is Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. He is the author of Brain, Vision, Memory: Tales in the History of Neuroscience (MIT Press, 1998).