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A new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychoanalyst Doidge traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed--people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.--From publisher description.… (more)
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This book discusses breakthroughs in neuroplasticity, or the science of how our brain changes with input from the environment. Cognitive theorists viewed the adult brain as a 'machine' capable of very little actual change. Science shows our brains are constantly changing with new input for good (leaning to use skills again after a stroke, teaching the blind to 'see' with electronic input) or bad (repeating OCD compulsions deepens them further, watching hard pornography on a regular basis can make it harder to be aroused in a 'regular' sexual situation). It discusses many of the breakthroughs that help people lead normal lives and the research that discusses how neuroplasticity occurs. A great accessible read for the layperson, and a must read for anybody in psychology or medicine.
But that turns out to matter very little, because the material at hand here is so, so interesting. I'm a little suspicious of Doidge's "for years nobody believed in neuroplasticity, but now they realize it will FIX EVERYTHING", but I think that's more the fault of the presenter, because wow, neuroplasticity is going to fix everything! The basic concept is that while most of our mental and physical functions may live in specific locations in the brain, that's not hard and fast as suggested by old localization creed--neural maps can move, and new areas can take over for old ones, and with repetition and exercise we can train our brain to function in new ways and learn or relearn skills that brain damage should mean we've lost or never had. Help for kids with autism, aphasia, old people with Alzheimer's! Help for the deaf and blind! Understanding how falling in love wipes out our old mental maps as we neuroplastically mold to our new lovers! Amputating phantom limbs! Helping people with OCD, obsessive thoughts, chronic pain. Understanding the imagination. A sombre but not sensationalistic discussion of how neuroplasticity informs the whole internet-pornography thing. Helping people lose undesirable personality traits by learning why they developed them in the first place. Even a girl who is a little weird but fully functioning WITH ONLY HALF A BRAIN.
And let's go back, briefly, not to the brain girl, as interesting as she is, but to the personality traits thing. As an English grad student who was just laughing about how all the suggested t-shirt designs for our program feature quotations, not from literature, but from critical theorists, because that's still the way fucking English programs roll ("Dare to Dream" -Lacan. Nice sentiment coming from anyone else), what interests me is the way Doidge, obviously interested in the future of brain science but also a fairly old-school psychoanalyst and believer in the talking cure, manages to square the circle, reminding us that Freud ("Yo mama" -Freud. the others are even worse) was originally a neurologist and bringing stuff about plasticity back to the familiar ol' Freudian notions about how we learn to be who we are--and bringing Freudian notions about how we learn habits to protect our fragile psyches down to what that actually is proving to mean in the brain, and how true it's proving to be. Freud first proposed neuroplasticity. Freud first proposed the synapse, and the simultaneous firing of synapses is behind his ideas on free association. Other shit like that. I admit I'm not really qualified to evaluate the evidence coming as it does only from Doidge the true believer, but when I'm spending days in psych classes with Carrie Cuttler pooh-poohing the very notion of anything Freudian having anything relevant to say to modern psychology, which lest we forget is a real science, it's nice to get a corrective, however much truth is in it, that says hey, Freud may not be experimental science by the modern standard, but he created a model of serious explanatory power, and not just as a gussied-up metaphor the way English students use it. there is also a discussion of Marshall McLuhan in terms of how the medium actually affects the brain. Actually taking theory as referring in non-parameaningful terms to things and processes in the real world, and laying it all out for us in such compelling, even if sometimes crudely expressed, terms, is . . . well, it kind of restores your faith in the public (even the pop) intellectual, is what it does.
Be warned, however; much of what we've learned about the workings of the brain has come from animal research, and the details aren't danced around in this book. In fact, the author spends quite a few pages defending the research using silverbacks conducted by Taub; he makes the case that PETA had its facts wrong and actually did more harm to the animals by taking them away from the lab. Readers will encounter examinations of the brains of sacrificed animals, but they will also find descriptions of human autopsies and their findings. For example, the findings of new cells in the final days of life aren't from indirect evidence, but direct observations from autopsies. Such descriptions do not make up the bulk of the book, but they are more than a few pages and particularly sensitive readers may want to find another book to read.
Weaving clinical anecdotes with background on prominent researchers, Doidge makes a very good case that research on humans and other animals can translate to improvements in quality of life for those with impaired development or brain injury. Well-referenced, the work tucks away literature citations at the end of the book so that they don't interrupt the flow of the narrative.
Although the chapters of the text cover a variety of cases, the commonalities of neuroplasticity come through clearly for the reader to make this work a unified whole. I recommend this book for any educated layperson who'd like to know more about the flexibility of the brain without learning a vast new terminology.
Not even horribly marred by the author's need to pin
The parts that are backed by science appear very well referenced.
I want to buy a heap of copies for family and friends - even though I don't think many of them would read it.
'Not so,' says researcher Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and researcher in neuroplasticity. He presents evidence
A thorougly engaging read that opens up a myriad of possibilities for brain research and personal improvement.
For what it is, it's nearly perfect, but for a broader understanding, would need to
The ideas are entertainingly presented using case studies. A readable, inspiring book.
Pop science, very intriguing reporting on recent case studies and research that suggest the human brain is much more plastic that has traditionally been believed. I thought it was a nice blend of medical theory and more personal interviews with individuals with a
Grade: A-
Recommended: To people who like their medical reporting at about the same level as a good Nova episode (seriously, let's not get crazy, my degree is in the humanities), somewhat similar to an Oliver Sacks book. However, I will add the caution that unlike Oliver Sacks' writing, this book is full frontal on the animal research that is happening in this field. I respect the honesty ... but I was not expecting it and now I have some new images burned into my psyche that I will carry with me to the grave.
Bach-y-Rita's story about PETA and the Silver Spring monkeys would make a good book / play / movie about the overreach, inconsistency, and just plain meanness of the so-called animal lovers, especially the reaction of others to the charges that
Seen from one point of view, the book is full of wonders. A woman born with only half a brain nevertheless reads, relates intelligently to other people, performs astonishing feats of memory, and dreams of a heaven tailor-made for her needs. People paralysed by stroke years earlier recover speech or movement through an intensive exercise regime. Persistent pain in phantom limbs is relieved using a mirror in a box. People move objects using only their imaginations (helped by electrodes attached to their brains and linked to computers).
From another point of view, it charts the progress of hard science catching up with common wisdom. Contrary to the dogmas of the ‘mental health’ industry, observable changes in the brain don’t incontrovertibly indicate physical conditions that can only be remedied by drugs, surgery or electric shock. The aggressive assertions of evolutionary psychologists look even more ideologically based than they did without this evidence. addictions, including to internet pornography, Doidge is a Freudian, and describes the progress of one man’s analysis as an exercise in neuroplastic therapy. In an appendix, ‘The Culturally Modified Brain’ he writes:
Neuroplastic research has shown us that every sustained activity ever mapped – including physical activities, sensory activities, learning, thinking and imagining – changes the brain as well as the mind.
I’m glad my primary schooldays included endless amounts of memorising.
Style: Uses anecdotes and case histories ties to a specific