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The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

Norman Doidge,

Jim Bond (Reader)

4.18 · Rating details · 32,216 ratings · 2,180 reviews

“Fascinating. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.” —Oliver Sacks

The discovery that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains—even into old age—is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries. In this revolutionary look at the brain, bestselling author, psychiatrist, a ...more

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Published April 19th 2011 by Brilliance Audio (first published March 15th 2007)

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Nov 21, 2008 Trevor rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, psychology

When I saw this book initially I thought that I would have nothing but unequivocally good things to say about it. I am very fond of ‘brain’ books and prefer to believe that the mind is ‘plastic’ – that it can change itself or re-wire itself. I haven’t got much to pin this hope on. But hope is a good thing. However, in the end my response to this book has been much less black-and-white than I thought it would be.

I’ve also just finished Fooled By Randomness. This has made me hypersensitive to any ...more

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Aug 27, 2007 Rebecca rated it liked it · review of another edition

So far this book has taught me two things.

1. That I am far more affected than I expected to be by the phrase "sew a kitten's eyelid closed for three weeks..after which the kitten remained permanently blind in one eye."

and

2. Using the word "till" instead of "until" is acceptable in scholarly writing.

For the rest of the information, stay tuned.

Okay, so I finished the book. It was a fulfilling emotional rollercoaster for the chronically impressionable and acutely anxious. Every chapter presente ...more

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Jul 01, 2014 Nicky rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science-fact

Content note: discusses some examples you may interpret as animal cruelty.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this book. My main response, I guess, is "read with caution". There are some parts which are reasonable, well-founded, and which don't seem to be driven by any bias. Talking about the ways to help people recover from strokes would fall under this category; I was actually a bit surprised that all of the information about brain maps, and the brain's "use it or lose it" approach to neuronal Content note: discusses some examples you may interpret as animal cruelty.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this book. My main response, I guess, is "read with caution". There are some parts which are reasonable, well-founded, and which don't seem to be driven by any bias. Talking about the ways to help people recover from strokes would fall under this category; I was actually a bit surprised that all of the information about brain maps, and the brain's "use it or lose it" approach to neuronal real estate, was actually considered surprising or controversial. I thought that aspect of neurobiology was fairly clear to people in this day and age. Certainly, the idea that you can expand areas of your brain by using them, and lose abilities by not practicing them, seemed to me obvious. The book was written in 2007, so I expected an understanding brain plasticity to be the norm, not the underdog.

It's when Doidge got onto other topics that I started to feel uncomfortable. Googling around a bit showed that Fast ForWord isn't universally acclaimed, as I'm sure it would be if the results were as unequivocal as Doidge presents them. Just hitting Wikipedia shows some doubt about the experiments -- the ones with clear positive results were conducted by biased people and weren't subjected to double-blind methods.

Then I got to the chapter on "sexual perversions". Sexual perversion, to Doidge, basically seems to be anything he doesn't personally like. People with kinks or fetishes are not just different, but sick, in his analysis. And it's usually their parents' fault -- or porn. It's not just individual difference, but something which must be corrected. Homogeneity for all.

(I really wonder what he'd think about my total disinterest in a) sex and b) other people's taboos about sex. If you're not doing anything to anyone that they don't want and haven't asked for, go ahead. Enthusiastic consent obtained? None of my business anymore, if it ever was. Sure, a lot of it makes no sense to me and has no appeal, but nor does skateboarding or bungee jumping.)

He just seems to have a problem with difference in general. If your brain isn't wired the way other people's brains are wired, you've got to fix it.

This did make his chapter on OCD and related problems interesting to me (see also my mental health awareness post on Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Me). I don't have any particular arguments with his way of describing OCD and the treatment thereof: I recognise those obsessive behaviours, the things that were unhelpful in trying to reverse them, and the things that actually did help. He criticises CBT in a way that entirely makes sense to me, pointing out that by focusing on the intrusive thought, you can get it more firmly entrenched in your mind. This was a very short chapter, though.

Then there's a lot of stuff about experiments on animals, which is where I gave up on this guy. I'm not automatically against animal experimentation, when limited, tightly controlled, and cleared or at least discussed with an ethics board. I find it hard, though, to see the value in cutting all the sensory nerves in both a monkey's arms and then sticking a probe into its brain to measure responses there. I find it especially hard to cope with a narrative where this is so matter of fact that there is no mention of ethical concerns at all -- except to complain that they got in the way of science. PETA are often crackpots, I think they might have had a point here, though.

So if you do read this, read it with caution, attention to the notes, reference to outside sources and studies. Be prepared for very dispassionate recountings of some pretty awful experiments. (Sure, let's sew a kitten's eye shut for the first weeks of its life, to prove that it can then never process sight with that eye again. It's not like we could do that experiment just by looking historically at children with cataracts. Oh, wait.) Be prepared for the fact that this guy is in no way neutral.

The sad thing is, I find the idea of brain plasticity utterly fascinating; some of this book is great. Some of it just... isn't, and I'm sure there must be a better book out there with a bit less of the author's personal feelings directing the text. ...more

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Mar 24, 2008 Mike rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is about the plasticity of the brain. That is versus "Localizationism" which holds that the brain is static and each part performs only one function. Modern science, thru the use of MRI, Catscan and observed recoveries of function loss have disproved the long-held notion of localizationism.

The book is really a set of stories about people who have regained or developed senses they either lost or never had. The stories are quite inspiring. For example, one man had a stroke and lost the ...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Megan Baxter rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Oliver Sacks, he ain't. Despite the back cover blurb from Oliver Sacks, this is definitely a lesser book. There are some interesting things in here, and may be worth a read, even though there was one chapter that I thought was just terrible. But don't go looking here for Sacks' deep humanism and warmth. This is much more the distant case history, although the science he's talking about is fascinating.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enf ...more

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May 30, 2007 Marion rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, perspective-changer

This book was absolutely fascinating. I have always been intrigued by how the brain works and, even though I am not a "science" person, I found this book easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable.

The book is about the recent notion that the brain is "plastic," or malleable. Our brain has the ability to change - through learning, through experience, through our thoughts. It was once thought that the brain was "hardwired," and that certain parts of the brain performed specific tasks and that if those ...more

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Nov 25, 2014 Mario Tomic rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The big idea of the book is the concept of plasticity and how the brain deals with learning and changing multiple skills. In a nutshell each brain function is "fighting" for limited resources, there's only so much mapping space available and what you work on the most gets developed. "Use it or lose it."

Whatever you don't cultivate, over time you will lose, including ability to: cultivate multiple skills, generate new ideas, stay focused, math/science skills, learning a new language, playing an ...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Bettie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: winter-20152016, tbr-busting-2016, newtome-author, non-fic-feb-2016, published-2007, nonfiction, sciences

travelling mp3, new car and an open road...

Description: An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., 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 ...more

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Jun 12, 2008 Lily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone with questions about the brain.

This book was a very interesting read. I found it to be a pretty "light" read, in that the science mumbo-jumbo had been effectively translated into English. But that doesn't mean Doidge's claims are unsupported--throughout the text, and in extensive notes, he cites published research results, giving the book plenty of credibility.

The Brain that Changes Itself discusses the (apparently controversial) subject of neuroplasticity. Although many of its claims seem perfectly intuitive (through mental ...more

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Dec 17, 2009 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biology, psychology, science

A truly fascinating, accessible book about the plasticity of the brain. Most interesting to me were the clever approaches that some psychologists invented, for solving or mediating various mental/physical problems. Although this book is not of the "self-help" variety, it contains a number of approaches that have been used for improving brain functioning. ...more

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Sep 09, 2015 Blair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: zzz-public-library, psychology, zzz-own-on-paper

The Brain that Slowly Changes Itself, If You Work Really Hard at It

It was once thought that the brain was a complex machine, with each part performing a single dedicated function. If a part broke you lost that function. This book is about “brain plasticity”, the concept that the brain can change the way it functions. For example, if one goes blind the part of the brain responsible for sight may be re-wired to improve the sense of hearing or touch. As Doidge puts it:

“There is an endless war of n ...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Merilee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: teachers, those interested in the brain

Recommended to Merilee by: Vicki

This book was amazing. Not a real page-turner, but a fascinating look at the brain's ability to rewire itself and grow/change beyond our expectation.

Praise the Lord who made our brains so complex and adept at fulfilling their purpose!

I especially liked the chapters that dealt with autism, and overcoming disabilities. If you are interested in neuroplasticity, brain maps, or just want some ideas about keeping your brain in shape as you age - you may want to read this book.

(I didn't particularly li ...more

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Feb 26, 2020 Beth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

We can alter the structure of our brains, at will, by the way we behave and think. This radical truth entered mainstream neuroscience about 30 years ago, finally shattering the earlier belief in fixed regions of the brain.

“Neurons that fire together wire together.” If repeated, the connections get stronger. Unused connections wither away – use it or lose it. Therein lies what Doidge calls the ‘Plastic Paradox’. With commitment, we can expand our brains by learning new skills, at any age, and ope We can alter the structure of our brains, at will, by the way we behave and think. This radical truth entered mainstream neuroscience about 30 years ago, finally shattering the earlier belief in fixed regions of the brain.

“Neurons that fire together wire together.” If repeated, the connections get stronger. Unused connections wither away – use it or lose it. Therein lies what Doidge calls the ‘Plastic Paradox’. With commitment, we can expand our brains by learning new skills, at any age, and open up the quality of our lives. Without this, the brain will wire existing habits and thought patterns more tightly into ever deepening ruts producing rigid thinking and narrow lives that are hard to change.

Nothing is fixed. Everything is up for grabs. Cultural and religious beliefs, sexual predilections, the sources of depression and anxiety, and much more, are all post-natal wiring that can, in theory, be disentangled and rewired. And the brain’s ability to find neuronal rat-runs, or create new ones, in response to injury (including stroke) is staggering, admittedly with much effort.

The brain reshapes in response to sustained, focused attention on something new. Skills that have cognitive and physical elements - learning a musical instrument, dancing, drawing – are especially potent, as are skills that combine the senses such as learning a new language. GoodReaders will be gratified to learn that intense reading of new material also makes the grade. Novelty is indispensible.

Good general health is critical, especially sufficient sleep when new skills are wired and memories embedded. Regular exercise encourages the growth of new neurons from stem cells; alcohol does not. The brain’s blood supply is protected by a healthy diet and not smoking. No surprises here.

My attention was drawn to reducing the risks of dementia, though the book has a far wider reach than this. It is fascinating that we can alter the structure of our brains as we can alter the shape of our bodies through exercise, and glean such huge benefits as a result. It is no surprise that people who are educated (in the broadest sense) and who continue to explore new cognitive territory are less prone to dementia than those who sink into passive comfort zones.

This book was quite a challenging read and assumed some knowledge of neuro-anatomy in the reader. The content is so fascinating, however, that it more than compensates for the rather heavy writing.
...more

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Jul 09, 2018 Farha Crystal rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Neuroplasticity as a double-edged sword can cause flexibility or rigidity to the brain tissues.

Neurons in the brain connect themselves as you use them. Each brain function is competing for limited resources and there is limited mapping space. So, what you have worked on the most gets developed. It's similar to physical exercise, the more you practice it in a certain way, the more you will get flexible in certain body parts resulting in more automaticity and the reduction of resources necessary Neuroplasticity as a double-edged sword can cause flexibility or rigidity to the brain tissues.

Neurons in the brain connect themselves as you use them. Each brain function is competing for limited resources and there is limited mapping space. So, what you have worked on the most gets developed. It's similar to physical exercise, the more you practice it in a certain way, the more you will get flexible in certain body parts resulting in more automaticity and the reduction of resources necessary to complete a specific move/task. Conversely, if you don't exercise, you will get overwhelmed and trapped with the same cycle of procrastinating exercise. Furthermore, unlearning is a lot harder than learning in a similar way because every repetition of that old habit made it stronger to change further.

Now, the brain's ability to change depends on learning through experience( outside stimulants, turning on some genes in catalyst environments...).
So, the concept that the certain brain parts were "hardwired" to perform specific tasks were overthrown by its capacity to deny the death of those brain cells( it can simply rewire to accomplish tasks ).

The book was so lucid and well consuming but I don't want to have dinner with Norman Doidge for a personal reason( emotional ok? :P ). He described all those experiments on those poor animals such as rats, monkeys, kitten ... in a zombie mode :(. There is another reason, his attitude seems like " If your brain doesn't work like a so-called functional brain then there is something wrong with your brain, so you have to get better with outside stimulants " ( Pardon me, If I misunderstood him ... and I'm open to reread him again :) )

The concept of "change" itself is a fascinating, open path to be promoted/encouraged but when the ethic propaganda "change is for good/bad/better/worse"
is promoted to control diversity forcefully then it goes really sickening.

But, as a human, I'm full of cognitive dissonances ( :P), so I put 4/5 into my satisfaction level. Because in this case, my left hemisphere reasoning had won the battle against my emotional turndown reasons. :) ...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: medical-books-read-work-books

This is a must-read for anyone in healthcare. An interesting and important read for everyone else. Cleverly done - he takes real stories about people who have changed their brains, the way they move, communicate, think, act, etc., and discusses the science behind it. He does this in an easy, fascinating way. Another interesting aspect is his discussion on the history behind neuroplasticity. We have known for years that our brain can change.
When I became a nurse we were taught that your brain is ...more

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Feb 25, 2017 Michael Perkins rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Conservatives are an especially fear-prone group. In a 2008 paper in the journal Science, researchers subjected a group of adults with strong political beliefs to a set of startling noises and graphic images. Those with the strongest physical reactions were more likely to support capital punishment, defense spending and the war in Iraq.

A 2011 paper in the journal Cell found a correlation between conservative leanings and the size of the right amygdala, the portion of the brain that processes em ...more

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May 23, 2013 Shaun rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brain-science, non-fiction, read-in-2013

As scientists have learned more about the brain, they've come to reject the idea that it is a fixed hardwired machine as previously thought, but instead a malleable and flexible structure that can change throughout our lifespan in ways that we are only just beginning to appreciate.

Each chapter in The Brain That Changes Itself deals with a theme that explores the plastic nature of the brain and an individual story that highlights that particular theme. From treating stroke victims to those suffer As scientists have learned more about the brain, they've come to reject the idea that it is a fixed hardwired machine as previously thought, but instead a malleable and flexible structure that can change throughout our lifespan in ways that we are only just beginning to appreciate.

Each chapter in The Brain That Changes Itself deals with a theme that explores the plastic nature of the brain and an individual story that highlights that particular theme. From treating stroke victims to those suffering from learning disabilities or struggling to recover from psychological trauma to those looking to protect themselves against or reverse mental decline and dementia, understanding the plastic and restorative nature of the brain offers new hope and options in achieving brain health and better quality of life for many who had little to no hope before.

Like any emerging science, the "research" has to be taken at face value. Yet I think this book does a good job of introducing the changing attitudes about the brain, how it works, and what those new attitudes mean from a clinical perspective.

At times, some chapters sounded like infomercials for a particular treatment/technique, though I think this was simply enthusiasm on the author's part, perhaps to honor the men and women who contributed to this book.

Obviously we haven't figured the brain out, but with each new discovery we find another small piece of the puzzle and Doidge did a good job of introducing the concept of neuroplasticity, how we got there scientifically, and its implications.

Some of the reviews I read found fault with the chapter on sex, which talked about the addictive side of pornography among other things. I personally didn't find it offensive or prudish, and it was consistent with other things I have read. At the very minimum, Doidge makes some valid points, although this particular chapter felt more biased than the others and seemed to be less cohesive in terms of its overall presentation.

I also enjoyed the Appendixes which delved into the social implications of brain plasticity. For example, genetics influences brain development which influences culture, but culture can also influence the structure of the brain. Furthermore, the malleable nature of the brain can have negative consequences and those are briefly explored.

Bottom line, a good read that I would recommend to those interested in brain science, specifically the plastic nature of the brain and the practical implications. ...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Jafar rated it liked it · review of another edition

The book is about neuroplasticity: the idea that our thoughts and experiences can rewire and change the structure of our brains. This may sound like a revolutionary idea in an age when too many people talk about a brain hardwired by our genes, and the author certainly dramatizes this point and wants to portray his book as representing a novel and ground-breaking idea, but somehow what the book says didn’t come across to me as revolutionary as it claims. Maybe because I’ve already read Ramachandr ...more

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Nov 14, 2013 Amanda rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Hmmm..... This book started out quite interesting but unfortunately I haven't been able to continue reading it. The description of testing on animals started in Chapter 3 and continued in Chapter 4. As an animal lover and animal rights campaigner, I just could not bear to read the detailed descriptions of the torture these poor animals were put through. ...more

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Jan 08, 2015 Dawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I found this book so inspiring. As a psychiatrist, not much of the subject matter was new, but Doige has compiled decades of research into a readable book about how amazing and adaptable the brain is. I must say that it has really made me think not only about how neuroplasticity affects my clinical practice, but also how it influences myself, my children and my family.

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Feb 10, 2013 Gail rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I really wasn't sure how to rate this book as I don't usually read non-fiction. It was remarkably easy to read and understand, well set out with a lot of supportive evidence.

It documented the development of the theory of brain plasticity. How various people had played with the idea over time, gaining little or no support. To down right stonings. That last bit might be a slight exaggeration. :). The topics touched on were fascinating.

Mid book I got a little concerned about some areas covered an ...more

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Apr 17, 2020 Sato rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this book in three different positions and each position in a particular angle to the screen. The interesting thing I noticed is that when I changed the usual angle, I was having more struggle to track down the lines and the content and a following significant change in the pace. Over the course of reading, I could see an improvement in reading in different angles which was pretty much proportional to the content of this book, Plasticity. Brain plasticity is truly a gift, which allows us I read this book in three different positions and each position in a particular angle to the screen. The interesting thing I noticed is that when I changed the usual angle, I was having more struggle to track down the lines and the content and a following significant change in the pace. Over the course of reading, I could see an improvement in reading in different angles which was pretty much proportional to the content of this book, Plasticity. Brain plasticity is truly a gift, which allows us to adapt to a vast range of environments. How fundamentally training shapes and rewires brain is presented in several accounts and in different frames in this book. How neurons and different brain parts operating to shape certain plastic changes are very insightful and interesting facts about the underlying process of our brains.

Plasticity vs localizationism: Plasticity is an almost new field which revolutionized neuroscience and went directly against the localizationism and the notion of hardwired brains. Therefore plasticity is a science that proves not only brain is not like a hardwired structure of circuits, but also it can be rewired over time provided by numerous experimental cases by pioneers of the science of plasticity like Paul Bach-y-Rita, Merzenich, Ramachandran, Schwartz, Pascual-Leone, and etc. 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.

Plasticity and rewiring: Many tastes we think “natural” are acquired through learning and become “second nature” to us. We are unable to distinguish our “second nature” from our “original nature” because our neuroplastic brains, once rewired, develop a new nature, every bit as biological as our original.

Plasticity and Unlearning: The science of unlearning is a very new one. Because plasticity is competitive, when a person develops a neural network, it becomes efficient and self-sustaining and, like a habit, hard to unlearn.
Different chemistries are involved in learning than in unlearning. When we learn something new, neurons fire together and wire together, and a chemical process occurs at the neuronal level called “long-term potentiation,” or LTP, which strengthens the connections between the neurons. When the brain unlearns associations and disconnects neurons, another chemical process occurs, called “long-term depression,” or LTD (which has nothing to do with a depressed mood state). Unlearning and weakening connections between neurons is just as plastic a process, and just as important, as learning and strengthening them. If we only strengthened connections, our neuronal networks would get saturated. Evidence suggests that unlearning existing memories is necessary to make room for new memories in our networks.

Plasticity and OCD(Obsessive Compulsive Disorder): Schwartz set out to develop a treatment that would change the OCD circuit by unlocking the link between the orbital cortex and the cingulate and normalizing the functioning of the caudate. Schwartz wondered whether patients could shift the caudate “manually” by paying constant, effortful attention and actively focusing on something besides the worry, such as a new, pleasurable activity. This approach makes plastic sense because it “grows” a new brain circuit that gives pleasure and triggers dopamine release which, as we have seen, rewards the new activity and consolidates and grows new neuronal connections. This new circuit can eventually compete with the older one, and according to use it or lose it, the pathological networks will weaken. With this treatment we don’t so much “break” bad habits as replace bad behaviors with better ones.

Plasticity and Pain: Ramachandran developed the idea that pain is a complex system under the plastic brain’s control. He summed this up as follows: “Pain is an opinion on the organism’s state of health rather than a mere reflexive response to injury.” The brain gathers evidence from many sources before triggering pain. He has also said that “pain is an illusion” and that “our mind is a virtual reality machine,” which experiences the world indirectly and processes it at one remove, constructing a model in our head. So pain, like the body image, is a construct of our brain.

Plasticity and Imagination: Whats several “imaginary” experiments show is how truly integrated imagination and action are, despite the fact that we tend to think of imagination and action as completely different and subject to different rules. But consider this: in some cases, the faster you can imagine something, the faster you can do it. Jean Decety of Lyon, France, has done different versions of a simple experiment. When you time how long it takes to imagine writing your name with your “good hand,” and then actually write it, the times will be similar. When you imagine writing your name with your nondominant hand, it will take longer both to imagine it and to write it. Most people who are right-handed find that their “mental left hand” is slower than their “mental right hand.” In studies of patients with stroke or Parkinson’s disease (which causes people’s movements to slow), Decety observed that patients took longer to imagine moving the affected limb than the unaffected one. Both mental imagery and actions are thought to be slowed because they both are products of the same motor program in the brain. The speed with which we imagine is probably constrained by the neuronal firing rate of our motor programs. ...more

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Feb 25, 2020 H.A. Leuschel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A fascinating book about the malleability of the brain.

The author presents a variety of case studies that show that an individual's mind can fix what is wrong with the brain. This is down to the idea that the brain has a plasticity with the capability to heal and alter at any time during a person's life. Examples are patients with phantom limb pain, OCD sufferers, blindness, pain management etc. who all benefited from a neuroplastic therapeutic approach to improve their condition.
It's an inspi ...more

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Jan 24, 2008 Kirsten rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: from-library, non-fiction, psych-and-neuroscience

This is an absolutely fascinating book about how neurologists have discovered in the past thirty years or so that the human brain is much, much more resilient and plastic than it was believed to be for a long time. Neurologists used to think that everyone's brain map was basically the same, with functions like sight or hearing in pretty much the same place, and that if those sections of the brain were damaged, then the function they controlled would be permanently impaired. This didn't explain, ...more

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Jan 11, 2020 Whitney rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, favorites, 2020, biographies-non-fiction

An incredibly insightful novel into the new wave of Neuroplasticity. Once upon a time the brain was considered a single part of the body shaped & unchanged into adulthood. This body of work enlightens us to the great organ that is the BRAIN an everchanging miraculous part of our body

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Mar 19, 2009 Lcbogota rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book made me reexamine what I believed about human behavior, in particular our ability to change. The author refers to neuroscience and brain studies to argue that every time we engage in a behavior, we create or reinforce pathways in our brain. Intuitively we know that the more you practice a skill, the better you get at it. The better you get at something, the less effort it takes. Brain scans demonstrate this process. The concept is known as brain plasticity, which means the brain's abil ...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Koen Crolla rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, biology

The Brain that Changes Itself is nominally about neuroplasticity and our growing understanding of it, but if you like your pop sci to have its emphasis on the sci rather than the pop, it's probably not the best book for you to be reading.

It's important to keep in mind that the subtitle is ``Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science''; the main purpose of it is not to inform, but to make you feel good about what the human body can do. And unsurprisingly, a lot of the time th The Brain that Changes Itself is nominally about neuroplasticity and our growing understanding of it, but if you like your pop sci to have its emphasis on the sci rather than the pop, it's probably not the best book for you to be reading.

It's important to keep in mind that the subtitle is ``Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science''; the main purpose of it is not to inform, but to make you feel good about what the human body can do. And unsurprisingly, a lot of the time the thing that is triumphed over is not just a disability, but also the (as usual largely imaginary) derision and ossification of the Scientific Establishment, which gets incredibly old really quickly.
Doidge does hint at the downsides of neuroplasticity, mostly using the predictable example—porn addiction. He happily parrots Freud and pulls a whole lot of bullshit about the decline of modern society out of his ass, demonstrating once again why, exactly, only psychologists think psychologists are scientists. For all the sensitivity displayed about physical disabilities, retardation, and idiocy, he certainly has no qualms about denouncing perfectly innocent fetishes as ``perversion''.

So it's science in much the same way that science journalism is, nowadays. While there are important insights to be had here, he spends too much time focussing on the human interest side of things, and grossly overstating how controversial neuroplasticity is. It's definitely one of those books that would have been great if it had been written by a scientist, but as it is, it's barely a few steps above day-time television.

(The appendices, incidentally, are even worse than the main body, and an important reason my rating is so low. The first, The Culturally Modified Brain, is guilty of the worst excesses of evolutionary psychology as she is practised, with a healthy dose of cultural condescension thrown in. The second, Plasticity and the Idea of Progress, tries to attribute the concept of neuroplasticity to everyone from Rousseau to Thomas Jefferson. This is the same impulse that credits Democritus with modern atomic theory and Jesus the Buddha with Marxism, and I will never understand it.) ...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

At least for me, a large portion of my upbringing in anatomy, physiology, and psychology at University lead me to the conclusion that different areas of the brain are hardwired for different things and that from there on out it is pretty much just simon says. Because I knew little about the plasticity of the brain, or much of the notion that this is how the brain worked I think the book really got me around seeing a different side of what a marvelous organ the brain truly is and how complex and ...more

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Dec 15, 2013 ♥ Ibrahim ♥ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: psychology, thinkers-i-adore, science, neuroplasticity

It seems like that this book has become a classic and one can read it over and over again for a dose of encouragement about the brain and its plasticity and that there is nothing impossible with God. Everything can change for the best and all the long-held theories have been largely proven wrong and it is never too late for the brain to do many wonderful things, despite anything in the big, wide world!

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Mar 01, 2011 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aa, science-med-env, non-fiction, brain-mental-autism

I'd already seen the TV series about it, but it was just as fascinating to read. Might have to get a copy to keep browsing through. ...more

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About Norman Doidge

Norman Doidge

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Norman Doidge, M.D., is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, author, essayist and poet.

He is on the Research Faculty at Columbia University’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry.

He is a native of Toronto.

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“Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history.” — 52 likes

“All of us have worries. We worry because we are intelligent beings. Intelligence predicts, that is its essence; the same intelligence that allows us to plan, hope, imagine, and hypothesize also allows us to worry and anticipate negative outcomes.” — 35 likes

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