The Idea of the Brain: A History: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020

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It seems that we need a Newton, Darwin or Einstein to come into brain and cognition research. We need new ideas and new metaphors. We probably need more advanced technology. Hurley RA, Flashman LA, Chow TW, Taber KH. The brainstem: anatomy, assessment, and clinical syndromes. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010;22(1):iv-7. doi:10.1176/jnp.2010.22.1.iv

Fama R, Sullivan EV. Thalamic structures and associated cognitive functions: Relations with age and aging. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2015;54:29-37. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.03.008 How computer AI works. Very short intro. There are some points about how AI researchers see the brain, but brains are totally different from programs. Also, we don't know how AI works so the research i Medical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We avoid using tertiary references. We link primary sources — including studies, scientific references, and statistics — within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom of our articles. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy. Whether or not the participant loses consciousness during the replay has concrete, practical consequences. For some theories, experiments using whole-brain replay [ 90] (such as the study of the neuronal microcircuitry of agonizing pain) would be ethically unacceptable without proper animal welfare measures because the animals will consciously experience the effects of replay during the experiment. In contrast, for other theories, a whole-brain replay may reduce the ethical concerns to a minimum because it is identical to potent anesthesia and a complete loss of consciousness but allows studying the active brain. An animal that expresses agony during such an experiment is similar to the unconscious participant pushing the button during the replay, i.e., it would not feel anything consciously.

This is better. He spends a few paragraphs pointing out men and women have different brains and explains that brain regions are not completely independent. Still not great deep info, but it's fine. Brain size and intelligence correlation is mentioned. And then brain size, intelligence and race. But the author is clearly not knowledgeable on this area so he just calls this “racist” and lazily moves on. Which is a shame because this research is by far the most interesting part of the chapter for any modern reader. It’s a huge debate point in 2021.

Matthew Cobb covered each era and discovery with as little bias as he could, and clearly attempted to make each section accessible. I'm not usually much of a historian, but the sections on theology and cultural influences were just as interesting as those which directly pertained to neuroscience or psychology.

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Ostensibly, this book is about how the metaphors we’ve used to understand the brain over time have been informed by the technologies of the time, and in turn, these metaphors actually constrain our understanding. That concept makes a couple of cameos in the book, but is by no means an organizing principle. Gazzaniga MS. The split-brain: rooting consciousness in biology. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014;111(51):18093-4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1417892111 Cobb explores the fact that we are almost certainly at the edge of the use value of the computer metaphor.