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Seven And A Half Lessons About The Brain Hardcover – November 17, 2020
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32 Used from $6.5629 New from $11.74From the author of How Emotions Are Made, a captivating collection of short essays about your brain, in the tradition of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.
Have you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In seven short essays (plus a bite-sized story about how brains evolved), this slim, entertaining, and accessible collection reveals mind-expanding lessons from the front lines of neuroscience research. You'll learn where brains came from, how they're structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience. Along the way, you'll also learn to dismiss popular myths such as the idea of a "lizard brain" and the alleged battle between thoughts and emotions, or even between nature and nurture, to determine your behavior.
Sure to intrigue casual readers and scientific veterans alike, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain is full of surprises, humor, and important implications for human nature--a gift of a book that you will want to savor again and again.
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192 pages
November 17, 2020
From the Publisher
A conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
Q: Why do I have a brain?
A: Brain’s didn’t evolve so you can think, feel or see. They evolved to control bodies. Everything your brain does – think, feel, see, hear, etc. -- it does in the service of controlling your body. This is your brain’s most important job. Understanding this illuminates mysteries like: How are your mind and body linked? How does chronic stress seep under the skin and make you sick? Why are physical illnesses like heart disease and Parkinson’s disease so similar to mental illnesses like depression? And why there is a growing epidemic of depression and anxiety around the world?
Q: How does your brain work?
A: During much of the last century, scientists thought your brain worked sort of like a muscle – the world stimulates it, and it reacts. The stimulation would come from the outside world in the form of sights, sounds, smells, and other sense data. But scientists have learned that brain’s billions of neurons are continuously in conversation, guessing what might happen next and preparing your body in advance to deal with it. It’s issuing predictions that launch what you do and see and feel, but it happens so quickly that you feel like you’re reacting!
Here’s one way to think about it: From the moment you are born until the moment that you die, your brain is locked inside a dark, silent box called your skull. It continuously receives scraps of data from the outside world, like waves of light (from your eyes), chemicals (through your nose and on your tongue), and changes in air pressure (in your ears). Your brain has to use these scraps of information to figure out how to keep your body alive and well Is that CRASH outside caused by a racoon in your trash can, someone dropping a box on the ground, or a car bumping into another car outside your home? Is that tightness in your chest a sore muscle from lifting something heavy, a feeling of anxiety, or a sign that you might be having heart trouble? In every moment, it must figure out what caused the current barrage of sense data and what to do about it, using your memories of past experiences. So your brain isn’t reactive, it’s predictive.
Q: I’ve heard that the human brain has an ancient area, called the “lizard brain,” that can hijack the rational part of the brain (the neocortex) and cause me to say & do things that are ill-advised. Is this true?
A: No. The only animal that has a lizard brain is a lizard. The so-called lizard brain in humans is a folk tale that was popularized in the 1970s, though its roots stretch back to Plato in Ancient Greece. Scientists in the early and mid-1900s examined a bunch of animal brains and determined that the human brain had parts that other mammal and reptile brains don’t, crafting the narrative of a layered brain. Supposedly, the brain’s core contains reptilian parts that give us instincts, wrapped in newer mammalian parts that give us emotions, wrapped in human parts that give us rationality. This story, called the triune brain, says the human brain evolved in layers like a birthday cake, where the topmost layer, the icing, handles rationality.
Since the 1970s, however, scientists have been able to compare brain cells by their genetic markers, and it turns out that mice, rats, dogs, cats, horses, and every other mammalian species studied so far (and possibly the brains of fish, lizards, and birds, too ) follow the same manufacturing plan. Basically, you have the same brain plan as a bloodsucking lamprey.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of November 2020: Barrett’s pithy exploration of the mysterious brain is breezy, fun, and, most important, delivers information with a vividness that will make it actually stick in readers’ memories. This popular science book packs a lot in a small space—much like a person’s brain, appropriately. —Adrian Liang, Amazon Book Review
Review
"This short, concise, readable, thought-challenging view of the complex brain will pique the reader and puzzle the mind wondering what reality really is."—San Francisco Book Review "A deeply researched, compulsively readable, subtly philosophical tour through the human brain…. In just a few pages, Barrett dispels myths so deeply entrenched that many of us assumed they were indisputable scientific fact (goodbye, lizard brain!) And she does all of this with the effortless concision of a poet, not a word wasted…. [Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain] deserves to be read and re-read and then, just as important, to be thought about deeply."—Dan Pink "Highly recommended, this smart pithy primer on the brain is fascinating.”—Michael Pollan, via Twitter “An excellent education in brain science…[Feldman Barrett] deftly employs metaphor and anecdote to deliver an insightful overview of her favorite subject… so short and sweet that most readers will continue to the 35-page appendix, in which the author delves more deeply, but with no less clarity, into topics ranging from teleology to the Myers-Briggs personality test to ‘Plato’s writings about the human psyche.’ Outstanding popular science.”—Kirkus, STARRED "What about that 'three-pound blob between your ears'? In seven essays about the brain and a half-size one about its evolution…Barrett has crafted a well-written tribute to this wow-inducing organ."—Booklist “[A] must-read science book. Neuroscientist Barrett takes readers on a journey from the first earthly creatures, through the musings of ancient philosophers, and to present-day neuroscience.”—Discover Magazine “Beautiful writing and sublime insights that will blow your mind like a string of firecrackers. If you want a rundown of the brain and its magic, start here.”—David Eagleman, Stanford neuroscientist, New York Times bestselling author of Incognito and Livewired "Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain reads like a novel—one whose main character is all of us. In fresh and lively prose, Barrett provides deep insight into what brains are for, how they operate and are programmed, how they create the ‘reality’ we experience, and how they ultimately produce our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Read this book! It will make you smarter about yourself, and your species."—Leonard Mlodinow, New York Times bestselling author of The Drunkard’s Walk, Subliminal, and Elastic “A radical and provocative look at a range of pervasive misconceptions, emerging discoveries, and enticing mysteries regarding our very nature as individuals and intertwined social beings. By illuminating our unimaginably complex, constantly changing brain/body networks, Barrett gets to the heart of the new understanding of who and what we are as creatures, and how much latitude and agency we have."—Jon Kabat-Zinn, Founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), author of Full Catastrophe Living and The Healing Power of Mindfulness "Lisa Feldman Barrett is a pioneer in neuroscience and one of today’s most provocat —
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Publisher : Mariner Books (November 17, 2020)
Language : English
Hardcover : 192 pages
ISBN-10 : 0358157145
ISBN-13 : 978-0358157144
Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
Dimensions : 5 x 0.77 x 7.5 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #46,413 in Books (
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Lisa Feldman BarrettLisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D. is among the top 1% most cited scientists in the world for her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. She is a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University with appointments at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barrett was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in neuroscience in 2019, and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada. She lives in Boston. More at LisaFeldmanBarrett.com. Twitter: @LFeldmanBarrett.
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G. C. Carter5.0 out of 5 stars Provides insightful summary of new information how the evolution and function of the brainReviewed in the United States on February 4, 2021
Verified PurchaseThe book entitled: “Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain” by Lisa Feldman Barrett provided its greatest value to this reader by challenging things that I had previously been taught and knew or thought that I knew about the brain. This book provides another explanation of how and why the human brain operates that way that it does. The book is worth purchasing and reading. The author, Professor Barrett writes
“Animals had gobbled one another before, but now the eating was more purposeful. Hunting didn’t require a brain, but it was a big step toward developing one.
The emergence of predators during the Cambrian period transformed the planet into a more competitive and dangerous place. Both predators and prey evolved to sense more of the world around them. With the arrival of greater senses, the most critical question in existence became Is that blob in the distance good to eat, or will it eat me?
When it came to body budgeting, prediction beat reaction. A creature that prepared its movement before the predator struck was more likely to be around tomorrow than a creature that awaited a predator’s pounce. Creatures that predicted correctly most of the time, or made nonfatal mistakes and learned from them, did well. Those that frequently predicted poorly, missed threats, or false-alarmed about threats that never materialized didn’t do so well. They explored their environment less, foraged less, and were less likely to reproduce”
“Lesson No. 1 You Have One Brain (Not Three)
According to this evolutionary story, the human brain ended up with three layers—one for surviving, one for feeling, and one for thinking—an arrangement known as the triune brain. Fortunately, we don’t have to reconcile them, because one of them is wrong. The triune brain idea is one of the most successful and widespread errors in all of science.
Today, terms like lizard brain and limbic system run rampant through popular-science books and newspaper and magazine articles. … By the 1990s, experts had completely rejected the idea of a three-layered brain. It simply didn’t hold up. … scientists have learned that evolution does not add layers to brain anatomy like geological layers of sedimentary rock. But human brains are obviously different from rat brains, so how exactly did our brains come to differ if not by adding layers?”
Moreover, Professor Barrett writes: “Human brains did not emerge from reptile brains by evolving extra parts for emotion and rationality. Instead, something more interesting happened.” And goes on to state: “… your misnamed neocortex is not a new part; … Anything you read or hear that proclaims the human neocortex, cerebral cortex, or prefrontal cortex to be the root of rationality, or says that the frontal lobe regulates so-called emotional brain areas to keep irrational behavior in check, is simply outdated or woefully incomplete. The triune brain idea and its epic battle between emotion, instinct, and rationality is a modern myth.” And “Your brain is not more evolved than a rat or lizard brain, just differently evolved. … Why do expensive executive-training courses teach CEOs to get a grip on their lizard brains if experts in brain evolution dismissed such ideas decades ago?”
Professor Barrett writes: “Your brain does not “store” memories like computer files to be retrieved and opened later. … what kind of brain do we actually have … Your brain is a network—a collection of parts that are connected to function as a single unit. … Your brain, in turn, is a network of 128 billion neurons connected as a single, massive, and flexible structure.”
The author goes on to write: “Your brain network is organized in much the same way. Its neurons are grouped into clusters that are like airports. … Brain hubs, like airport hubs, make a complicated system efficient. They allow most neurons to participate globally even as they focus more locally. Hubs form the backbone of communication throughout the brain.”
Professor Barrett explains: “Your brain network is not static—it changes continuously. … These network changes happen instantaneously and continually, even as your physical brain structure seems unchanged. In addition, some of these chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine, can also act on other neurotransmitters to dial up or dial down their effects. … changes are examples of what scientists call plasticity, and they occur throughout your life.” And goes on to state: “A brain doesn’t store memories like files in a computer—it reconstructs them on demand with electricity and swirling chemicals. We call this process remembering but it’s really assembling. … Brains of higher complexity are also more creative. A complex brain can combine past experiences in new ways to deal with things that it has never encountered before; … The highly complex human brain isn’t a pinnacle of evolution, remember; it’s just well adapted to the environments we inhabit.”
In lesson 3, the author explains: “Many animals emerge from the egg or womb with brains that are more fully wired to control their bodies, but little human brains … don’t take on their full adult structure and function until they finish their principal wiring, a process that takes about twenty-five years. …”
On nature vs. nurture, Professor Barrett writes: “Scholars usually discuss this issue in terms of nature versus nurture—which aspects of humanity are built into our genes before birth and which ones we learn from our culture. … so deeply entwined that it’s unhelpful to call them separate names like nature and nurture.” And goes on to provide tantalizing insight into new research, stating: “… To make matters even stranger, a baby’s body requires some additional genes that sneak in from the outside world. These tiny visitors travel inside of bacteria and other critters and affect the brain in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand.” Moreover, Professor Barrett reminds the reader: “… As information travels from the world into the newborn brain, some neurons fire together more frequently than others, causing gradual brain changes that we’ve called plasticity. These changes nudge the infant’s brain toward higher complexity via two processes we’ll call tuning and pruning. … Tuning means strengthening the connections between neurons, … Meanwhile, less-used connections weaken and die off. This is the process of pruning… is critical in a developing brain, because little humans are born with many more connections than they will ultimately use.”
As to language development, Professor Barrett writes: “When tested in a lab, newborns can distinguish a wide range of language sounds, including those that they don’t hear very often. But over time, tuning and pruning will wire the baby’s brain based on the vocal sounds he hears more regularly. Sounds that are frequent cause certain neural connections to be tuned, and the baby’s brain starts to treat those sounds as part of its niche. Sounds that are rare are treated as noise to be ignored, and eventually, related neural connections fall out of use and are pruned away. Scientists think this sort of pruning may be one reason why children have an easier time learning languages than adults do. Different spoken languages use different sets of sounds.”
With respect to early child development, consistent with other research, the author reminds the reader: “In the 1960s, the Communist government of Romania … ,… In some orphanages, babies were warehoused in rows of cribs, with little stimulation or social interaction. Nurses or caregivers would come in and feed them, change them, and put them back in the cribs. That was about it. Nobody cuddled these babies. No one played with them. No one conversed with or sang to them, or shared attention. They were ignored. As a consequence of this social neglect, the Romanian orphans grew up intellectually impaired. They had problems learning language. They had difficulty concentrating and resisting distractions, probably because nobody had shared attention with them, so their brains never developed the wiring for an effective spotlight. They also had trouble controlling themselves. … The scientific evidence is clear on this point. You can’t just feed and water babies and expect their brains to grow normally.”
Professor Barrett goes on to explain: “Each little brain becomes optimized for its particular environment, the one it developed in. Caregivers curate a baby’s physical and social niche, and the baby’s brain learns that niche. When the baby grows up, he perpetuates that niche by passing his culture to the next generation through his words and actions, wiring their brains in turn. This process, called cultural inheritance, is efficient and frugal because evolution doesn’t have to encode all our wiring instructions in genes.”
In Lesson No. 4 Your Brain Predicts (Almost) Everything You Do, Professor Barrett states: “Scientists have had hints for more than a century that brains are predicting organs, though we didn’t decipher those hints until recently. You might have heard of Ivan Pavlov, the nineteenth-century physiologist who famously taught his dogs to salivate upon hearing a sound (usually described as a bell, but it was really a ticking metronome). … Pavlov won a Nobel Prize for discovering this effect, which became known as Pavlovian or classical conditioning, but he didn’t realize that he was discovering how brains predict.”
The author goes on to explain, in a manner that is likely to have practical implications to things like police shooting actions to state in the case of a soldier predicting an enemy but faced with a non-combatant: “The soldier’s brain chose the other option, however; his brain stuck with its prediction in spite of the sense data from the world. This can happen for many reasons, one being that his brain predicted his life was on the line. Brains aren’t wired for accuracy. They’re wired to keep us alive. … You and I seem to sense first and act second. You see an enemy and then raise your rifle. But in your brain, sensing actually comes second. Your brain is wired to prepare for action first, like moving your index finger onto a trigger …”
In Lesson No. 5 Your Brain Secretly Works with Other Brains, Professor Barrett writes: “ How do the people around you influence your body budget and rewire your adult brain? Little by little, your brain becomes tuned and pruned as you interact with others. … Some brains are more attentive to the people around them, and others less so, but everybody has somebody … Being a social species has all sorts of advantages for us Homo sapiens. One advantage is that we live longer if we have close, supportive relationships with other people. … Another advantage of being a social species is that we do better at our jobs when we work with peers and managers whom we trust.
It’s metabolically costly for a brain to deal with things that are hard to predict. No wonder people create so-called echo chambers, surrounding themselves with news and views that reinforce what they already believe—it reduces the metabolic cost and unpleasantness of learning something new. Unfortunately, it also reduces the odds of learning something that might change a person’s mind.”
Professor Barrett goes on to write: “Humans are unique in the animal kingdom, however, because we also regulate each other with words. … Simply put, a long period of chronic stress can harm a human brain. Scientific studies are absolutely clear on this point. … The best thing for your nervous system is another human. The worst thing for your nervous system is also another human. … A more realistic approach to our dilemma, I think, at least in the United States, is to realize that freedom always comes with responsibility. We are free to speak and act, but we are not free from the consequences of what we say and do. We might not care about those consequences, or we might not agree that those consequences are justified, but they nonetheless have costs that we all pay. … The price of personal freedom is personal responsibility for your impact on others. The wiring of all of our brains guarantees it. … Taking our species’ interdependence seriously doesn’t mean restricting rights. It can mean simply understanding the impact we have on one another.” And “Like it or not, we influence the brains and bodies of those around us with our actions and words, and they return the favor.”
In Lesson No. 6 Brains Make More than One Kind of Mind, Professor Barrett writes: “ …you are from a Western culture, like I am, your mind has features called thoughts and emotions, and the two feel fundamentally different from each other. But people who grow up in Balinese culture, as well as in the Ilongot culture in the Philippines, do not experience what we Westerners call cognition and emotion as different kinds of events. They experience what we would call a blend of thinking and feeling, but to them it’s a single thing. … In short, a particular human brain in a particular human body, raised and wired in a particular culture, will produce a particular kind of mind. … It’s important for humans to have many kinds of minds, because variation is critical for the survival of a species. One of Charles Darwin’s greatest insights was that variation is a prerequisite for natural selection to work.”
Professor Barrett goes on to write: “So even when scientists do acknowledge that there are different kinds of minds, they try to tame the variation by organizing it into categories. They sort people into neat little boxes with labels. Some people are labeled as having a warm personality, and others are cold. Some people are more dominant and others more nurturing. Some cultures prioritize individuals over the group, while others do the opposite.” And goes on to write about personality testing stating: “You may have seen personality tests that collect information about you and assign you to a little box. A great example is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, which sorts people into sixteen little boxes labeled with different personality types to classify you and supposedly help you get ahead in your career. Sadly, the MBTI’s scientific validity is pretty dubious. … Personally, I prefer the Hogwarts Sorting Test, which has only four boxes and is far more rigorous. “
In the final Lesson No. 7 Our Brains Can Create Reality, Professor Barrett discusses details of the brains five C’s: creativity, communication, copying, cooperation, and compression adding additional understanding of the brain.]
This reader found this book worth purchasing and worth reading but disappointing was that the references were not in the traditional and familiar form this reader is familiar with; in particular, instead of footnotes or endnotes with the references, the author stated: “As a professor, I usually include loads of scientific details in my writing, such as descriptions of studies and pointers to journal papers. For these informal essays, however, I’ve moved the full scientific references to my website, sevenandahalflessons.com.” However, when I went to that website, I found it difficult to navigate and apparently, one has to search out each noted reference slowly one at a time. Had the author provided “descriptions of studies and pointers to journal papers” in a more accessible fashion then reader’s confidence in the material likely would have been strengthened. Oddly, this was something new learned by this reader, namely the author explains that the brain predicts the future and then looks for data to corroborate what is expected rather than what many of us presumed, namely that we collect data and logically weigh the data before deciding. As the author, states: “All sorts of animals, including humans, somehow conjure up past experiences to prepare their bodies for action.” So this reader, from past experience, looked to the notes for references preparing to see the explicit references.
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YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh5.0 out of 5 stars When Barrett "takes lab coat off", it is wonderful!Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2020
Verified Purchase7&1/2 Lessons is brilliant, thin, metaphor laden, rich, frustrating, sometimes overly professorial and truly wonderful. If you liked her earlier book, How Emotions are Made (HEAM), you will like this book, too! Although it is a completely difference book. If you are new to neuroscience, this is the perfect place to start. If you know too much, this book will rustle the leaves in your dendrites.
A novel feature of this book is that you can follow along with the website to see the notes and references without having to flip to the back notes section. The 36 pages of notes seems to have more exposition that the website, but the references are on the website. You can always go back to the notes. Also, 11 pages of index.
Barrett is a master of what I'll "poke & pour" storytelling, starting with the Title: 7.5 Lessons... Wait! What's a half lessons. That's the poke. The pour is a flow of knowledge that can cling to the freshly poked curiosity. An example from p.10 - there is no why for our brains, "no why to evolution". Followed by a great passage on allostatis and what the brain is good for ... "so you can perform nature's most vital task: passing your genes to the next generation." If that is not WHY, then I am a monkey's uncle.
7.5 Lessons has a more developed metaphor for body budgeting (allostatis) evolving to an accounting department. The 1/2 lesson is that brain is not for thinking but for running our bodies. It is the accountant running our body.
p.50 "As information travels from the world into the newborn brain, some neurons fire together more frequently than others, causing gradual brain changes that we've called plasticity. These changes nudge the infant's brain toward higher complexity via two processes we'll call tuning and pruning."
Pruning Dendrites: Nice tree metaphor where the trunk is an axon and the bark is the myelin. We need to add a subway to this metaphor. Packets or info are gathered by the leaves, flow down the trunk, into the subway, ride to another arboretum, flow up the trunk to the branches and become neurotransmitters flowing to the surrounding dendrites.
p.61 "Childhood poverty is a huge waste of human opportunity" (early brain development is critical) Finlay's model of mammal brain development timeline.
The lesson on prediction was a little frustrating. Barrett understands this deeply, but, this rendition does not capture it. From previous book, HEAM: "Through prediction and correction, your brain continually creates and revises your mental model of the world. It's a huge ongoing simulation that constructs everything you perceive while determining how you act..."
The best nugget on prediction is not in the chapter, but on page 100 - "Your brain's predictions prepare your body for action and then contribute to what you sense and otherwise experience."
What happens when prediction overrules the senses?
p.71 hallucinations - "Most of the time when you look at cows, you see cows. But you've almost certainly had an experience ... where the information inside your head triumphs over the data from the outside world. ... Neuroscientists like to say that your day-to-day experience is a carefully controlled hallucination, constrained by the world and your body but ultimately constructed by your brain. It's not the kind of hallucination that sends you to the hospital. It's an everyday kind of hallucination that creates all your experiences and guides all your actions. It's the normal way that your brain gives meaning to your sense data, and you're almost always unaware that it's happening."
p.77 prediction, autopilot, mindlessly eating licorice. Lot's of good info on prediction, but, no Prediction Error at all.
While the science is top notch and great, what is truly wonderful about this book is when Barrett "takes lab coat off". This is from the Social Brains chapter. (Shared gaze, etc. See Cozolino 2006)
p.96 - "Taking our species' interdependence seriously doesn't mean restricting rights. It can mean simply understanding the impact we have on one another. Each of us can be the kind of person who makes more deposits into other people's body budgets than withdrawals or the kind of person who is a drain on the health and welfare of those around us."
I have too many scribbles in the margins of the rest of the book to be able to transcribe it here and now. Scribbles in the margins indicate stuff worth going back to.
Humans' superpower is the construction of social reality, which is Barrett's bailiwick. I'd love to take her 5 C's - creativity, communications, copying, cooperation and (c)abstraction and compare them with Christakis's Social Suite, or perhaps the 8 C's of IFS.
p.100 - "We have learned that humankind has a single brain architecture a complex network and yet each individual brain tunes and prunes itself to its surroundings."
p.101 - "It's important for humans to have many kinds of minds, because variation is critical for the survival of a species. One of Charles Darwin's greatest insights was that variation is a prerequisite for natural selection to work." (my paraphrase: we need both of what John Stuart Mill would have called liberals & conservatives in our populations to survive as a species.)
I am an armchair neuroscientist that has read more than a few books on consciousness. Barrett never mentions consciousness, but if the metaphor for consciousness is a stream, she elucidates the properties of water and gravity, the flows and eddies, as well the grasses and rocks that shape the stream. Just wonderful.
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崔明淑
[이토록 뜻밖의 뇌과학]
21세기의 뇌과학 최전선을 알 수 있는 책
<1장 요약>
-뇌에 관한 오랜 신화(삼위일체 뇌)
1 파충류의 뇌(뇌간 등) , 생존본능의뇌(호흡,맥박…)
2 포유류의 뇌(대뇌변연계),희노애락 감정의 뇌
3 인류의 뇌(신피질:전두전피질),사고 이성의 뇌
→진화에서 뇌가 복잡한 감각계와 운동계를 진화시키면서 신체 에너지를 예산관리하게 되었다. 이성이 동물적 충동과 감정을 누른다는 삼위일체 뇌는 서사(이성은 감정과 경쟁하지 않고 뇌내에서 다른 곳에 위치하는 것도 아니다. )
*3층구조의 뇌는 20세기 중반-폴 막크린
-1990년대부터 뇌전문가들은 완전부정 -뉴런분석결과
-인간의 4개의 뇌영역과 래트의 하나의 뇌영역->같은 유전자가 다수(역할의 재분배 가능성이 높음) —분자유전학으로 파충류나 포유류가 인간이 가진 것과 동종의 뉴런을 갖추고 있다는 것이 판명됨. (뇌가 같은 설계를 가지고 있을 가능성이 높음)
⭐️인간의 신피질,대뇌피질,전두전피질이 이성의 원천,전두엽이 감정뇌를 조절하여 비합리적 행동을 막는다는 것은 엉터리. 인간이 다른 동물에 비해 고도의 진화를 한 것이 아니라 다른 양태로 진화해 온 것에 불과함.
-그럼 “합리적”행동이란 무언가? —-사고는 합리적? 감정은 비합리적?
몸의 자원을 관리하는 차원에서 보면 합리성이란 자원의 소비와 저축을 통해 현재의 환경에서 번영하는 것. 합리적 행동이란 현재 상황에 타당한 신체예산의 투자를 의미.
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Jim H
3.0 out of 5 stars A Little UneasyReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 11, 2021
Verified PurchaseThis book has received a lot of praise, but I have reservations. It is quite easy to read and the author is clearly very well informed. But I am very unsure about the degree of support that the theory set out has amongst neuroscientists in general. Is the author making out the case for a theory that has a lot of support or very little? I don't know. The claim that our brains did not evolve because thinking - i.e. reasoning - has a big evolutionary advantage seems to me me very unlikely and I am not convinced by the author's argument.
Quite separately, I found the layout of the book unhelpful. It is necessary to read the 35 page appendix bit by bit as you go, but these notes are not referenced in the main text. I had to go through the main text and mark it up in pencil so I knew when to turn to the appendix. Tedious.
20 people found this helpful
Report abuseMadman
3.0 out of 5 stars She’s just not a very good writer.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 20, 2021
Verified PurchaseI heard her on Sam Harris’s podcast. Liked her, thought she was very interesting. But the book is a disappointment. Standard bad pop-sci shortcomings - e.g. unwieldy and unhelpful homely analogies instead of just describing the damn thing properly. Also, some of her big takes on the science are clearly non-mainstream. Which is fine, but she’s a bit off-hand withering of the mainstream, without being quite specific enough about what they’ve got wrong. Often, I suspect, it’s just a difference of emphasis or tone.
12 people found this helpful
Report abuseJ. Drew
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at how our brains workReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 12, 2022
Verified PurchaseThis book about the brain includes a number of sessions about this subject that Lisa Barrett has presented and now written a book about. The book begins by talking about the popular idea of metaphors of the brain and exemplified in the chimp paradox whereby we think we have a lizard brain and then a cat brain and on top we have a human brain (all competing for one another - hence why your rational, outer brain says ‘just one more chocolate’ and your monkey brain has eaten the entire packet before you rational brain states ‘what the hell just happened’) but the book states this idea is wrong as we can see in many other animals that are mammals and have similar brain structure. Elephants have larger brains and owls and mice have smaller but they are all in context. The book then goes on to look at how the brain is structured and why it makes the decisions it makes.
- The book describes how the brain is a network of systems. It contains 128 billion brain neuron cells which communicate with different parts of the brain to create a whole single perception of everything we experience.
- The author explains how the neurons in the brain are constantly firing and behave in similar ways to planes in the sky constantly going between airports. Airports have many different functions, selling tickets and allowing planes to fly and take off and land as well as selling bad food. However there are also major hubs that can take on the vast majority of planes should one go down then this can disrupt the system. However the brain is complex and other systems will take over. Many different neurons will work in different ways to do the same task just does you might have different planes and pilots fly new from one place to another
- The third lesson is about how the interaction between the outside world and our brain forms in our skull and discusses how our brains evolved. For example horses come out into the world and within a few hours are able to walk but babies have to develop this skill over 12 months. If a baby's eyes are not exposed to the constant rays of light they will not develop and be able to focus on what they see and construct what they see in their brain. The same is true of many other experiences such as cuddling and skin to skin contact as well as holding a babies face close to yours so that they're at the right distance so they can see and mimic and learn
- The third chapter contains a fascinating description about how our brains begin to prune what they have seen and reduce connections in the brain - this is called pruning. One example of the babies are able to hear all sounds and then slowly the brain will filter out the one that it recognises as its own home language. It is also able to smell breastmilk which as soon as it's released from the mum's breast it will crawl and find its way towards just through smell. This is a chapter that is worth another read.
- It's also really important that babies get social contact and an experiment which occurred by chance was where babies were observed in Romanian orphanages, where they had many babies due to the government asking for more manpower and increases in the number of babies born in Romania. However many families couldn't afford these babies so they were placed in institutions and did not receive cuddles and hugs and skin to skin contact they were just merely fed. Many of these babies grew up damaged and stunted and with learning difficulties. It's an important example of the importance of social touch regarding our brain development. These examples of neglect have been seen in many other circumstances as well. And if babies are neglected they will grow up more prone to a range of medical problems such as diabetes and heart attacks as well as difficulties in forming social attachment with other people. Similar impact has been shown in experiments on attachment using monkees where they are where they were given a model that was made of metal would give milk and another pretend mother that was more like a teddy and these were the monkeys that were attracted to the most - rather than the pretend monkey who was shaped from metal but did offer food. Social interaction is really important from the moment we are born.
- The fourth lesson talks about how the brain is a prediction machine that predicts everything you're going to do next. The brain consists of neurochemicals and swirling electrical activity that makes sense of everything around it and gives it meaning. However it is also determined by memory and what it is already perceived an experienced to help it make sense of how the brain will wire and fire together to help us with the acts of living our life and being who we are and what we perceive and make sense - whether it be taste, vision, hearing, touch and smell.
- The fifth lesson talks about how our brains are social brains and that they are changed and develop through the interactions with others. Being in a relationship that can help you to live a longer life than one where you are alone.
- The brain is always looking for ways of saving energy and the metabolic cost that is required to run it. The average energy required to run a brain is equal to the amount that you might need to light a lightbulb as it is an incredibly efficient machine. However it is really important and there are lots of benefits to having others in your life to help you and support you and the brain needs other brains to develop and support it. People who are lonely will often die earlier and if they get an illness have less of a chance of recovery as those who are in relationships or have a close friend and even a pet. Even the words that people use can help to ensure support brains, or make us angry. When we are given a compliment we can feel good but when someone is threatening us we can also feel rage and anger. Words can impact our hormones and emotions. Words can change the physiology of how we feel by changing the hormones that control our heart rate and sending all sorts of hormones through the body to change how we feel and behave. Words are powerful.
- Lesson six is about how we evolved with many different types and kinds of mind and not just one. Our culture and society and the people we surround us will shape our brains and how brains evolve and our structure can be dependent on the culture and people that surround us. This can include the culture, religion and beliefs that make up different countries.
- There are many types of mind variation. For example a mind may be autistic or schizophrenia but also in less extreme cases minds can produce some people to be thoughtful and others to be more caring and empathetic what we need to do is embrace all these different kinds of minds because they are what helps humans to continue to develop a wide rang of skills on this planet. Having a wide range of minds means we can deal with a wide range of problems.
- Even though people around us will have different types of mind it's also important to be aware that we can change our own mind. This might be temporary either through drinking lots of coffee or and taking vitamins to stay up all night to revise for something or when we drink and become more sociable and find other people more attractive - we have altered the state of our own mind. We can also do this on longer terms for example going to a new country and exploring different cultures as well as learning something new which again changes the structure and way your mind behaves.
- Lesson seven is about how our brains create reality. The wavelength of light that bounces off something that we see and absorbs certain amounts of wavelengths that are then sent to our eyes and then evolve in our brain to create our perception of colour - this is created in the mind. The whole world is created as an illusion in our brains but this helps us to make sense of everything around us. Reality is an illusion created by our brains.
- We live in a world where we give meaning to pieces of paper and little bits of metal that we call money. It's all made up but we give it meaning and reality and we all get together to help us buy things and create things and be paid. Made up illusions we create and they then become real.
- With our brains being a prediction making machine we perceive wine that is more expensive is better than wine that is cheaper or real fair trade coffee tastes better than coffee that comes out of plain paper with no markings. We create this perception that changes how we feel towards something even though it is all made up. We create this reality through the five senses as described in this book.
- A short fascinating book about how our brains work - I really enjoyed reading it.
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7 people found this helpful
Report abuseJoe Bathelt
4.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to modern brain scienceReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 6, 2021
Verified PurchaseIn this very readable book, renowned psychologist, Dr Lisa Feldman-Barrett, goes through takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the current understanding of the mind and brain. Each bite-size chapter provides a bitesize introduction to a particular aspect of cognitive neuroscience. Rather than listing facts, Dr Feldman-Barrett focuses on broad conceptual and theoretical insights that have emerged over the last decade. For instance, she discusses how and why the brain is more interested in predicting features of the environment rather than providing an accurate representation of the world. Even though the topics are complex and represent the current scientific consensus, the book is very readable and would even be suited for interested high-school students. The author achieves this feat by replacing jargon with well-crafted analogies and metaphors. In sum, I think that this book is a shining example of science writing that makes complex topics accessible for the public. I think that this book provides the best introduction for anyone with an interest in the mind and brain who has no prior education in this area.
4 people found this helpful
Report abuseJess
2.0 out of 5 stars There are better books about the brain you can spend your time readingReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 15, 2022
Verified PurchaseWith the broad variety of books available that discuss the brain, I’d highly recommend finding ones other than this one. The author’s writing style is unpleasantly arrogant and patronising throughout, berating popular and existing ideas about the brain for being metaphors (I would assume most people seeking books on the subject matter would be capable of realising that metaphorical descriptions are in fact metaphors and are not to be taken as gospel) whilst ironically employing her own metaphors that do much of the research she’s basing them on a disservice and even more bizarrely hold less bearing on the subject matter than the ones she is criticising. I’m unclear on where she stands on any of the subject matters she has discussed, dragging much of the history of her profession through the mud for being incorrect by modern standards without acknowledging that we wouldn’t have arrived at our current knowledge on the subject without the scientific enquiry that came before. I think there are better figures in this field that describe the brain more informatively than a book with content I’d expect to see in a high school textbook. As others have pointed out the notes at the end (which make up close to a third of the book) are not referenced throughout where needed so I didn’t bother reading them.
One person found this helpful
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