More Brain Cuttings: Further Explorations of the Mind

Brain Cuttings #2

by Carl Zimmer

"The brain unfolds like a flower. The more I have explored neuroscience, the more it has rewarded me with new stories. In 2010, I published Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind. Here are fifteen more journeys. In some pieces, I look at some of the surprising ways in which the brain works. In others, I consider some of the many ways the brain goes wrong. And finally, I try to look at the brain as a whole—how the 100 billion neurons add up to a person's life of the mind, and produce consciousness." —Carl Zimmer

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Neuroscience, Popular Science

82 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 15, 2011

About the author

Carl Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times and the author of 15 books about science. His latest book is Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. Visit him at carlzimmer.com.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fantastic. I really want to learn more about epigenetics - how experience and environment can, by chemicals, affect the expression of genes in a single generation. A common one of fetal alcohol syndrome. The child who has it will not pass it on to their children. It's so fascinating...

There was an experiment with rats that really struck home with me as having implications for the future, but ethically very difficult ones. Rats who gave their babies lots of attention, licking them etc, had babies who grew up to be happy and outgoing. Rats who were cold and inattentive to their babies has babies that grew up to be fearful, got scared easily, high blood pressure etc. All the symptoms of stress. Babies who were removed from mothers who were known to be unloving and raised by loving foster mothers grew up to happy, and vice versa. This held true even when the DNA was identical. The treatment of the babies had changed the body chemistry so that some genes were suppressed, the 'happiness' genes.

Since it held true all the time, should babies be removed from mothers who are good in every way except they are unloving (I had one) and given to parents who will show them physical affection? This is likely to affect the whole of society with lower crime levels less child abuse and less stress at the minimum.

It is a truism that a child abuser is likely to be the child of child abusers. This is as likely to be a result of epigentics, the trait being passed down (to one generation, a bit like F1 in plants) by the influence of two chemicals on the genes as it is to be nurture. At this stage it is impossible to know.

There is plenty of interesting research to look forward to in the future and if it does prove that it is epigenetics what to do? We can't really live in a society ordered as 1984 or Brave New World.

[Bastian Greshake Tzovaras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again a short ebook about our brains. It scratches many interesting topics but does not cover those in depth, a thing which I would have liked.

[Essam Munir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect as usual...

[Horia Calborean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Same as the first, I forgot everything after 2-3 weeks. I enjoyed it more than the first but it might be just my mood.