{"id":87071,"date":"2018-08-13T23:05:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T23:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/strange-brains-offer-a-glimpse-into-the-mind\/"},"modified":"2018-08-13T23:05:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T23:05:45","slug":"strange-brains-offer-a-glimpse-into-the-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnreport.com\/en\/strange-brains-offer-a-glimpse-into-the-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange brains offer a glimpse into the mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

To understand the human brain, take note of the rare, the strange and the downright spooky. Thats the premise of two new books, Unthinkable<\/em> by science writer Helen Thomson and The Disordered Mind<\/em> by neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel.<\/p>\n

Both books describe people with minds that dont work the same way as everyone elses. These are people who are convinced that they are dead, for instance; people whose mental illnesses lead to incredible art; people whose memories have been stolen by dementia; people who dont forget anything. By scrutinizing these cases, the stories offer extreme examples of how the brain creates our realities.<\/p>\n

In the tradition of the late neurologist Oliver Sacks<\/a> (SN: 10\/14\/17, p. 28<\/em>), Thomson explores the experiences of nine people with unusual minds. She travels around the world to interview her subjects with compassion and curiosity. In England, she meets a man who, following a bathtub electrocution, became convinced that he was dead. (Every so often, he still feels \u201ca little bit dead,\u201d he tells Thomson.) In Los Angeles, she spends time with a 64-year-old man who can remember almost every day of his life in extreme detail. And in a frightening encounter in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, she interviews a man with schizophrenia who transmogrifies into a growling tiger. By visiting them in their element, Thomson presents these people not as parlor tricks, but as fully rendered human beings.<\/p>\n

Helen Thomson
Ecco, $27.99<\/p>\n

Eric R. Kandel
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30<\/p>\n

Kandel chooses the brain disorders themselves as his subjects. He explains the current neuroscientific understanding of autism, depression and schizophrenia, for example, by weaving together the history of the research and human examples. His chapter on dementia and memory is particularly compelling, given his own Nobel Prize\u2013winning role in revealing how brains form memories<\/a> (SN: 10\/14\/00, p. 247<\/em>).<\/p>\n

With diagrams of key brain regions, Alzheimers plaques and even chromosomes, Kandels book reads in some ways as a primer on the basic tenets of biology and neuroscience. Also included are stories of people, such as a woman who describes her bipolar illness in stark terms: \u201cFeelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence and euphoria pervade ones marrow.\u201d But then, she says, everything changes. \u201cYou are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.\u201d <\/p>\n

Though these cases seem extreme, Thomson and Kandel relate unusual brains to more common forms of thinking. Observing huge emotional swings that come with bipolar disorder can help inform scientists about more mundane changes in our happiness or sorrow. Figuring out why a person thinks hes dead could reveal how we more generally create our sense of self. Understanding why someone might remember everything, or nothing, could help us understand how memories physically change the brain<\/a> (SN: 2\/3\/18, p. 22<\/em>).<\/p>\n

By connecting these strange brains to everyday mental processes, both books make clear how much we all have in common, and more than that, how all our brains are a little bit unusual.<\/p>\n

Buy <\/em>Unthinkable<\/a> and <\/em>The Disordered Mind<\/a> from Amazon.com. Science News is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Please see our FAQ<\/a> for more details.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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