Mapping the Mind First Edition, Revised and Updated

When I purchased this book, it was based in large part with my fascination on the topic of the human mind and neurology in general. I'd taken a few classes here and there in Anatomy & Physiology during my first few years in college, but by in large I was definitely a novice when I read this book and was not very familiar with the vast field of neuroscience. What I liked the most about Rita Carter's Mapping the Mind is how introduction-friendly ad visually pleasing it is for those that aren't in the field but are fascinated like I am by the human mind. You don't have to be a neurologist to enjoy how Rita Carter lays out the current research (as of 2000) on various workings and issues regarding the human mind.With the above being said, now on to the good stuff! Rita Carter and neuropsychologist Christopher Firth put on an excellent show of presenting just how our personalities are shaped by biology and how different behavioral disorders can be traced back to the individual areas of ones brain. Carter presents many fascinating topics such as obsessions, compulsions, autism , what makes serial killers/convicted felons tick, addictions, dyslexia, ADD, depression, mania, and mood swings. Furthermore, there is even a compelling article on how researchers in a Canadian institution even managed to generate religious feelings/beliefs just by stimulating a region in the brain. As others have mentioned, the most interesting articles in the book come from the numerous experts in the fields of human psychology and neuroscience and add a nice depth to the overall books presented research and information.Mapping The Mind also presents some very interesting questions on the future of human ethics and morality. For example, if some human beings can't help what they do in that they are "hard-wired" for certain types of behavior and actions, then are they truly responsible for their actions? It is a very tough question to answer but one that is intriguing to think about in the event that one day criminals could very well be exonerated by brain scans and different imaging techniques alone. As I mentioned above also, is religion merely a portion of our minds that happens to be just a simulation? If scientists can stimulate an area of a brain causing even atheists to momentarily have religious thoughts, what does that imply about our society and religion?My only qualm (and this irritated the hell out of me for some reason, lol) is that the articles that were from various experts in the field of neurology would be inserted RIGHT in the middle of what you were reading more often than not. I would be reading an interesting section of a chapter and then this article would be plastered right on the next page or even during the sentence of the section I was trying to read. I'd then have to skip over the article that was in my way and then continue my section on the next page and THEN read the inserted article. It is a minor quip to be certain but I generally like to finish the particular portion I'm reading before going on to the inserted research articles in that particular chapter. So call it 4.5 stars with half a star for poor article placement.Whether you're an expert in this field or a novice and inquiring mind like I was, I recommend you pick up a copy of this book. It's $20 well-spent in my opinion :)-Travis

This fascinating book started with a bang that it kept up for almost the first half of the book. Thereafter, it switched from a comprehensive building of the picture of how the brain works to discussing individual cases of brains gone astray.Highlights:"Long-term memories are distributed through the brain, encoded in the same parts of it that gave rise to the original experience. A childhood recollection of eating ice cream on a sunny day in the country with birds singing, for instance, would be stored in several sensory areas: the ice cream taste in the 'taste' processing areas of the brain, the feeling of the sun on your skin on the somatosensory cortex, the sound of the birds in the auditory cortex, the sight of trees in the visual brain and so on.""The right hemisphere is also good at grasping whole, while the left brain likes detail." (This is not surprising since we know the right hemisphere processes information in a visual, simultaneous manner, like an image is captured, all at once. By contrast, we know the left hemisphere processes information in a linear-sequential manner, in a straight line, like the cars on a train move down the track: one after another with no way to jump the line.A great insight I know, based on reading outside this book, it that every sensory input (eyes, ears, nose, sensation) is duplicated and the same information is sent to both hemispheres--left and right. They operate on that same information differently. The right, image-processing-optimized hemisphere looks to see all at once what the image represents. Using an identical set of sensory data, the opposite hemisphere (left) is processing the same thing but instead of trying to match it as an image it tries to classify it."Almost every mental function you can think of is to come extent lateralized. Precisely how it happens is not fully understood, but it seems that incoming information is split into several parallel paths within the brain, each of which is given a slightly different treatment according to the route it takes. Information that is of particular 'interest' to one side will activate that side more strongly than the other. You can see this happen in a brain scan--the side that is 'in charge' of a particular task will light up while the matching area on the other side will glow far more dully."Generally the tasks that each hemisphere take on are those that fit its style of working: holistic or analytical.""In normal grains incoming sensory stimuli follow well-worn neural paths from the sensory organ to specific brain destinations. As the stimulus passes through the brain it is split into several different streams which are processed in parallel by different brain modules. Some of these modules are in the cerebral cortex. Others are in the limbic system where the stimuli generate the bodily reactions that give them an emotional quality--the thing that turns noise into music and a pattern of lines and contrasts into a thing of beauty."The cortical area for each sense is made up of a patchwork of smaller regions, each of which deals with a specific facet of sensory perception. The visual cortex, for example, has separate areas for color, movement, shape and so on. Once the incoming information has been assembled in these areas it is shunted forward to the large cortical regions known as association areas. Here the sensory perceptions are married with appropriate cognitive associations--the perception of a knife, for example, is joined with the concepts of stabbing and eating. It is only at this stage that the incoming information becomes a fully fledged, meaningful perception.""However well constructed a sensory perception may be it is meaningless until the brain recognizes it."There are two distinct types of recognition: one is the cerebral snap of the fingers that happens when you hear a familiar piece of music. Getting a joke is a form of this type of recognition--a good punchline delivers a sudden jolt of recognition. ..."This type of recognition is quite different from the other--the conscious acknowledgement of a correct answer that you arrive at if, say, you add a string of figures together. ..."The automatic type of recognition happens when one of the many parallel streams of incoming information passes through the limbic system" [the brain for emotions, unique to mammals]. "Modules here register the emotional content of the information, including familiarity. It happens so fast that the unconscious brain recognizes something is known to it before the conscious brain has even decided what the thing is."The understanding I have of neuroscience and ability to grasp the ideas related in this fine book is no doubt responsible for my delight in reading it. Lots of great insights. Putting the picture together.

A book by an award winning graphics artist. i figured it would be a bunch of pictures of the brain with some text. Nope, it's a ton of text with a fair number of pictures (maybe 1 per 2 pages). Wonderful illustrations but it's hardly a picture book.i'm a graduate student who builds software that mimics the human mind. i'm not a neurologist so i can't claim to review this book the way an expert would, nor can i claim to be particularly interested in the neurology and biology. But the information in here, which explains what all these parts do and what the impact is if they get damaged was really useful to be as a computational cognitive modeler.So what do i like about this book? Two things. First, it's pretty comprehensive and integrates the information well. It hits most of the significant parts of the brain and explains the relationships between them. Second, it's really easy to read, which is great when you have readers like me with a minimal background in this stuff. i've since read a lot of books on psychology, cognitive science and neurology. Few are as easy to understand as this one and few put all the information together as this one.Note that this book focuses on functionality and puts relatively less emphasis on mechanism. Yes, synapses, sheathing, neurotransmitters and reuptake are covered, but don't expect in-depth coverage of the role of glial cells or calcium influx. This is not your MCAT study guide and isn't a references for neurosurgeons doing their residency. But it does have some good information for people who work in or near the field and is easy enough and enjoyable enough for anyone of practically any age to read