Brain Science Everyone Should Know (Introduction to Brain Science)

Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)

by YANG SHU CHENG YI A MA ER · A ER CHA LA BI , [ YING ] MA DING · TE NA , [ YING ] SHA EN · DE LA MENG

Science and Technology Pub 2020-09-01 Tianjin Science and Technology Press What development has the human understanding of the brain experienced??Why does the development of the nervous system reflect the course of human evolution??Why are peo...

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Brain, Psychology, Neuroscience, Medicine, Reference

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[mohsen pourramezani · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب سعی می‌کند به زبانی ساده مغز انسان را توضیح بدهد. از زیست‌شناسی مغز شروع می‌کند و از مراحل شکل‌گیری مغز می‌گوید تا بخش‌های مختلفِ آن. در فصل‌های میانی کارکردهای مغز و مفاهیمی مانند آگاهی، حافظه، خواب و… را توضیح می‌دهد و در فصل‌های آخر در مورد حواس پنج‌گانه و مرگ مغزی می‌گوید.
چون تجربی خوانده‌‌ بودم بخش‌های اول کتاب برایم کمی تکراری بود و بعضی از مثال‌های معروف (مثل آزمایش میلگرم و…) را در کتاب‌های دیگر خوانده بودم. بخش‌های میانی کتاب برایم جذاب‌تر بود. جایی که در مورد آگاهی، خواب، حافظه و خاطره توضیح می‌داد. به نظرم کتاب برای اینکه جذاب‌تر باشد و راحت‌تر بتواند برخی از بخش‌های مغز را توضیح بدهد می‌توانست از عکس‌های بیشتر و بهتری استفاده کند. در مجموع برای اینکه دید کلی در مورد مغز انسان داشته باشیم کتاب خوبی است.

[Maryam · Rating 3 out of 5]

مغز انسان اغلب به عنوان پیچید‌ه‌ترین بخش بدن توصیف میشه. با اینکه دانش ما از نحوه کارکرد مغز بسیار گسترده‌ست. ولی هنوز بخش‌های زیادی از آن برای ما قابل درک نیست. کتاب به نحوی وضعیت مغز رو توضیح میده که برای افراد غیر متخصص هم قابل درک باشه هر فصل به جنبه‌های متفاوتی از جمله ساختار و رشد مغز، هوشیاری، حافظه، خواب، حس درد...می‌پردازه. یکی از بخش‌های جالب کتاب اشاره کردن به بیماری‌های نادر یا شایع که بخشی از مغز رو درگیره میکنه. در مجموع کتاب سرگرم کننده‌ای هستش برای افرادی که اطلاعات زیادی از عملکرد مغز ندارن.

[Momeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

اگر در مورد طرز کار مغزتون کنجکاوید این کتاب می‌تونه شروع خوبی برای آشناییتون با اون باشه. برای خود من این کنجکاوی اولین بار وقتی به وجود اومد که با دوستام داشتیم سر موضوع جبر و اختیار حرف می‌زدم. جالبه که رفتار آدما می‌تونه با دستکاری مغز به شدت عوض بشه مثلا من توی یک تدتاک دیدم که با مختل کردن کار یک قسمت از مغز آدمها قوه قضاوتشون رو از دست داده بودن . توی قسمتی از این کتاب نوشته بود که قسمتی از مغز که باعث عشق در یک نگاه می‌شه رو پیدا کردن :)))

کتابی که من دارم مال نشر نی هست با اسم درآمدی کوتاه به مغز که ترجمش هم خوبه

[Peyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی که به جرات می‌گویم عالی است. در قرن اخیر مسائل مربوط به آگاهی از حوزه‌ی فلسفه خارج و وارد علم شده است و قرائن بی‌شماری حاکی از این است که منشا آگاهی مغز است. برای همین بهترین راه برای بیراهه نرفتن، مطالعه‌ی مغز و ساختار آن است.
کتاب با آناتومی مغز، تکامل و ویژگی‌های فیزیولوژیکی آن آغاز شده و در ادامه وظایف و عملکرد هر کدام از قسمت‌های مغز و به تبع احساسات و اعمال انسان را تشریح می‌کند. برخلاف کتاب‌های علمی مرجع، به دلیل مطالب علمی جذاب و شگفت‌انگیزی که در لابه‌لای متن این کتاب می‌آید، حوصله‌ی خواننده هم سر نمی‌رود.
برای شروع مطالعه‌ی مغز (بدون پیش‌زمینه‌ی قوی بیولوژی) خواندن این کتاب شدیدا توصیه می‌شود.

[Masih Reyhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

بدون شک این کتاب از آن‌دسته کتاب‌هایی است که بینش شما نسبت به زندگی را دستخوش تغییر می‌کند. در واقع نگرش شما به زندگی و جهان شگفت‌انگیز مغز به ۲ بخش تقسیم خواهد شد: قبل از خوانش این کتاب و بعد از آن.

مطالعه‌ی این کتاب را نه فقط به علاقمندان به مغز، بلکه به تمامی کتاب‌خوان‌ها توصیه می‌کنم.

این کتاب، تقریبا به تمام مسائل مهم و روزمره‌ای که به نحوی به مغزمان مربوط است، به شیوه‌ای بدیع و تا حد بسیار زیادی آسان و قابل‌فهم پرداخته است. از خواب و رویا گرفته تا نحوه‌ی پردازش تصاویر و صدا در مغز.

[Dara Ghaznavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب یک مقدمه فوق العاده برای آشنایی با مغز و علوم و اعصاب، به همراه کلی مثال جالب و تامل برانگیز هست. ترجمه‌ی روان آقای محمد یوسفی هم لذت خواندن کتاب رو دو چندان کرده. خوندن "در آمدی کوتاه به مغز" رو به همه مخاطبان عام علم توصیه می کنم.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book giving a good overview of the brain, different areas, functions, and how and when discoveries about them were made. Not too much jargon and fairly easy to follow albeit a lot of information contained naturally.

[Mehrnoush Lotfi · Rating 5 out of 5]

great start to brain.

[Mae · Rating 5 out of 5]

جز این‌که ترجمه تو یه سری کلمات تخصصی به‌نظرم خوب عمل نکرده، باقی‌ش محشر بود و خیلی بهم کیف داد.

[Siddiq Husainy · Rating 4 out of 5]

[ The Brain ]
[ Ammar Al-Chalabi, Martin R. Turner, R. Shane Delamont ]

Tertarik dengan topik 'Ketagihan'. Tetapi sebelum itu aku berpendapat eloklah kalau ada pembacaan latar belakang sedikit mengenai otak untuk menghargai organ ringan yang banyak misteri ini.

Ironinya, hanya satu bahagian sahaja yang secara langsung berkaitan dengan topik 'Ketagihan' yang aku berminat itu iaitu mengenai dopamine. To quote,

"Working memory depends on the frontal lobes, which have a large number of receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. Given drugs that mimic dopamine, people who have a poor working memory improve, while those who have an excellent working memory deteriorate, which implies that there may be an optimal level of dopamine."

Dan dopamine ini ialah pleasure hormone. Jadi sesuatu yang kita lakukan yang menyebabkan keluarnya dopamine hormone ini, boleh menyebabkan kita ketagih dengan perkara tersebut. Dan consequencennya menyebabkan working memory to deteriorate. (Sila betulkan kalau salah!!)

Apa maksudnya working memory ialah, to quote:-

"..a short -term memory... which acts as a store for anything we need to remember to function.

So. Probably that's one thing I can keep in mind.

Tapi apa pun, pengetahuan lain sangat membantu saya untuk menghargai ciptaan yang bernama otak ini.

Penulis memulakan dengan section 1:- sejarah persepsi manusia mengenai otak, dan kemudian kepada section 2:- proses pembentukan otak dan seterusnya menerangkan fungsi otak.

Section 3 menerangkan tentang penggunaan otak sebagai seorang dewasa.

Argumentasi yang diberi dalam buku ini ialah manusia telah 'pre-programmed' untuk 'react' kepada sesuatu perkara. Maksudnya, boleh dikatakan ada beberapa perkara secara 'natural' atau 'fitrah'nya sudah tidak boleh diubah 'behaviour' kita.

Juga, satu perkara lagi yang menarik perhatian saya ialah mengenai REM(Rapid Eye Movement) dan NREM(Non-Rapid Eye Movement) sleep period. Properly time waktu tidur kita boleh mengoptimumkan kualiti tidur. Kualiti over kuantiti most of the time yeah.

Juga, menarik baca kaitan muzik dan emotion. Muzik yang harmoni boleh memberikan emosi positif kepada otak manakala muzik yang tidak harmoni sebaliknya regardless sama ada kita ada pemahaman mengenai teori muzik atau tidak.

Secara umumnya, untuk orang awam yang ingin tahu tentang otak, buku ini sangat membantu sebagai memberi pendahuluan kepada otak. All in all, dapat appreciate the fine tuning dan marvelous process of creation(might be a questionable term to use, process of creation instead of just creation. There's something to do with the way the book talks about evolution in the book. Though there are parts that I don't really buy/convinced, but for the brain to be fully developed as we know it now, it goes through a successive process.)

4/5

[V.A. Menon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book on Brain. This make you understand every aspect of
brain functions.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few nerve cells connected to each other form a neural net. A slightly larger collection is called a ganglion, the largest ganglion being the brain. A neural network cannot be programmed; instead, it’s trained and tested repeatedly until it has ‘learnt’ something. This is done by providing an input and ‘informing’ the network whether it has produced the correct output, (survival is the correct output). The human brain is a neural network fantastically organised.

- ORGANISATION OF THE BRAIN: The cerebrum is highly folded and in two hemispheres; the folds are gyri and the grooves are sulci. The corpus callosum connects the two halves. The cortex which covers the white matter can be divided into four regions: the frontal lobes are major players in determining aspects of personality, normal social behaviour and inhibition; the temporal lobes are concerned with memory function; the occipital lobes are the primary region for the processing of vast amounts of information arriving from the eyes; and the parietal lobes process sensory information and coordinate the vast influx of sensory information with motor output. The brain is lateralised, and each hemisphere contains specific responsibilities. The limbic system is responsible for the brain’s emotional responses, and contains the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the primary olfactory cortex, among other things. All sensory information on its way to the six-layered neocortex has first to pass through a central ‘relay’ and processing structure, the thalamus, from which it is directed to various cortical regions. The hypothalamus has several crucial functions including the regulation of body temperature, food and water intake, patterns of sexual behaviour, fear and rage, reward and punishment, and sleep-wake cycles. The basal ganglia, whose components include the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, have a critical role in motor function. The cerebellum further refines fine motor movement. The brainstem receives all the sensory inputs from around the body, information such as pain and joint position sense, and motor output from the cortex. It’s divided into three: the midbrain, pons, and medulla. The autonomic nervous system concerns itself with all the functions that we take for granted, such as breathing, heart rate, and digestion. It receives input from the hypothalamus and limbic system. This can be divided into two: the sympathetic system prepare the body for fight or flight, and the parasympathetic system conserves energy and slows the breathing and blood flow. These two systems oppose each other and are finely balanced.

- NATURE OR NURTURE? It seems that we are born with some built-in behaviours; phylogenetic memory is memory that is programmed into the nervous system of a species; so each part of the brain has a tendency to respond to certain things in certain ways but our experience determines a lot of the details. ToM: social skills require an ability to understand others. Piaget believed that the development of a child’s understanding advances in sudden leaps, followed by more gradual change, and that even bright children will be unable to grasp the concepts of the next stage. First is the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years): the world is separate from ourselves; seeing is believing. Then comes the pre-operational stage (2-7 years): children cannot easily understand abstract ideas, but are beginning to understand concrete physical concepts, such as shape and colour and to represent the world with images and language; their view of the world is still egocentric. Third is the concrete operations stage (7-11 years): children learn to think in a logical way, mainly about concrete objects, and begin to understand that people may have a different view to their own. Children also discover that the properties of objects remain the same even when the objects are manipulated in some way; the conservation of property. Lastly is the formal operations stage (11 years and older): we are able to think about abstract things and demonstrate a more scientific approach to the world, generating and testing ideas systematically, and can think about the future. This is the stage that people become interested in ideological problems and mathematical problems. Evolutionary psychology: what is a brain for? Only organisms that show behaviour have a brain, so a basic function of brains is to generate an appropriate behaviour in response to the environment. The circuits in our brains were not designed t solve any old problem, but to solve specific, life-altering problems that came up repeatedly in our evolutionary past. Most people think that animals are rules by instincts, but that humans rise above that. But this is not true: humans are regarded as ‘higher’ animals with instincts erased by evolution, dominated by rational thought, but learning and reasoning are our instincts. The learning and reasoning circuits we develop as children possess all the properties of instincts; completely specialised to deal with particular problems, developing reliably, predictably and automatically in all humans, with no conscious effort and no instructions, applied without awareness of their underlying logic and distinct from our more general abilities to think or behave intelligently.

CONSCIOUSNESS: “You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing - that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” (Richard Feynman).

- MEMORY: memory is a complex system of processes, all related, but able to be separated by scientific inquiry. Simplest division = short and long term memory. Short-term memory lasts seconds and consists of three types of memory store: iconic (for visual information), acoustic (for sounds), and working (for anything else). Short-term memories are stored in the prefrontal cortex. Long-term memory: it doesn’t matter how long something has been in short term memory, transferring the information requires either a level of emotional or intellectual understanding or a reduction in complexity. Learned information is useless unless it can be recalled and that is the other requirement of long term memory. Explicit memory consists of memories of personal experiences and facts (semantic memory); and personal memory is called episodic memory. Memory requires two neural circuits: the time component is integrated by a system comprising the hippocampus, the fornix, the front of the thalamus and part of the limbic cortex. The emotional component of memory involves the amydala, the thalamus and the prefrontal cortex. Without this, it becomes impossible to remember the emotional significance of an event. The role of the hippocampus: similar to an address book; memories are incorporated into existing knowledge. To a large extent, our ‘self’ depends on memory. The personality can remain unaffected, but our awareness of who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going is tied up with out ability to learn new information and recall the old.

- THE MOTOR SYSTEM: The motor system can be thought of as three separate systems, all of which are needed to allow us to move. 1) The lead vocalist: when we decide to make a movement, the planning begins in the promotor cortex. The feedback monitors found in the reflex arc permit rapid movement that is not consciously mediated. 2) The orchestra: making a voluntary movement is easy, but what happens to the muscles we are not thinking about? Unconscious muscle control is taken care of by the basal ganglia; they control the background activity on which a conscious movement is made. They are not where the action is, but unless they are working properly, the action is not what it should be. 3) The conductor; once a conscious behaviour is learned, we can relegate that behaviour to unconscious control, thanks to the cerebellum. The cerebellum is a storage depot for movements we have learnt; motor programs are stored here. The cerebellum integrates the learned action with information from the balance and joint position senses; so the it’s also responsible for coordination of action. How are these three systems connected? The cerebellum has three input/output sections. Motor cortex axons travelling down into the spinal cord meet with axons coming out of the middle stalk; signals carrying bodily information are processed by the cerebellum and sent to the thalamus. Signals from the motor cortex, processed by the basal ganglia, also go to the thalamus. The thalamus acts as a relay station for these sensory signals and sends them back, as feedback, to the motor cortex.

- THE SENSORY SYSTEM: What is the sense of feeling; there are six different senses that make up feeling; pain, temperature, light touch (all found in the skin), vibration, proprioception, and lastly a synthesis called two-point discrimination, the ability to tell if an object in contact with the skin is a single point or two. The intensity of the feeling depends on how fast the nerve is firing and how many nerves are firing. how do these processed become converted into an electrical signal? They activate a system of hormones and chemicals in the injured region, in the process of inflammation. The pain travels down the pain nerve into the spinal cord and into the thalamus, which passes them onto the cortex to be integrated into our conscious experience. Why do we need to feel at all? The answer: if we did not need to move, we would not need to feel in such detail, which is why the greatest amount of sensory endings are found in the body parts that explore the most: lips, tongue, and hands.

- THE VISUOSPATIAL SYSTEM: Perception is how an organism detects and interprets the external world; the occipital cortex is where the visual data arriving from the optic nerves are processed. There are up to twenty different parts of the visual cortex; the neurons in the main part of the visual cortex (V1) appear to respond to elongated objects and edges; V2 neurons may be responsible for detecting angles between pairs of lines; V3 seem to respond to orientation, colour and depth, but not motion; V4 respond to colour and spatial information; V5 respond to motion. As well as seeing something, the brain requires information about meaning and about the body’s relationship to objects in the image. The parietal lobes are critical for spatial processing; how we interpret our three-dimensional bodies and the world we live in; they are the great integrators of information from different parts of the brain.

- LANGUAGE and HEARING: mentally, we have the ability to encode the world around us as internal symbols and to communicate these symbols. We have. Ageneral tendency to learn language, not any particular language (Planet Word, The Language Instinct, etc.) The brain areas that deal with language; the auditory cortex is in and around the Sylvain fissure of the temporal lobes and consists of several specialised regions. Wernicke’s area = comprehension of speech; Broca’s area = speech formation; angular gyrus = generation of the internal voice. What is hearing? A sound is a series of compressions and rarefactions of a substance such as air or water, with the wave travelling from the source. These amplified vibrations are converted into electrical signals by the magic of the inner ear. Why does music exist? Either musical appreciation has a survival advantage and is therefore selected by evolution, or it is the accidental result of having a brain wired as it is for other reasons, (adaptation or spandrel). Some aspects of music and language are processed together; syntax, for example. For language, syntax is the combination of words required to generate a meaningful sentence; for music, it is the combination of notes required to make a meaningful composition. Music directly affects the limbic system, where teh brain processes emotion. Although the temporal lobes are needed to understand tunes, the emotional reaction to music is a direct response of the limbic system.

- EMOTIONS and THE LIMBIC SYSTEM: the limbic system circles the inside of the hemispheres, lying largely on the inside of the temporal lobes. The main components are the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. The limbic system deals with emotion, memory, and sense of smell.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief look at the anatomy, physiology and even sometimes pathology of the brain. Explains different aspects of brain functions, including different senses, emotions, consciousness and etc.
By the way, I'd just like to bring an interesting paragraph from this book:
"Most of us have experienced this last cause of muscle pain when running a long way or holding heavy things for a long time. It happens because muscles can create energy from sugar in two ways. The standard way is with oxygen, but if oxygen is in short supply, or if the exercise load is so heavy that a little extra energy is needed, muscles can switch to anaerobic metabolism: a process similar to that yeast uses for fermentation. Human muscle, rather than creating alcohol as a by-product, as yeast would, creates lactic acid, which causes pain and stiffness. If evolution had given us just one different enzyme in this metabolic pathway, we would make alcohol when we exercised and it might be a lot more popular, particularly among young people!"

[Matt Coles · Rating 5 out of 5]

TL;DR: The brain is an egg's way of making another egg. Sperms are at it too.

Nice overview

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew before starting this book that the human brain is often described as the most complex body in the known universe. What I hadn't fully appreciated is just how complex it is, and, as a consequence, just how little we really understand it. As revealed by the authors, for the most part our knowledge of how it works is very broad-brush. For the most part it is known which part of the brain is responsible for a particular function, and even the route that information takes as it moves from one region of the brain to another. And, of course, it has long been understood how neurons send electrical signals down their axons, and how neurotransmitters carry the signals across the synapses. But nothing is apparently known on how the brain decides, on a molecular level, which neurons should fire, and when they should fire.

As a chemist, I was hoping, perhaps a little optimistically, that the book might summarise the current understanding of how the brain functions at the molecular level. For example, how are memories stored and, more unfathomably, how are they recalled? Although I know that there has been some progress in these areas, they are not covered in the book, with the exception of a short discussion of a possible mechanism for consciousness. This is a theory of the physicist Roger Penrose, who has proposed that consciousness is a result of quantum gravity effects in the microtubules within the neurons, although this is a theory that has been heavily criticised and one for which there appears to be no experimental evidence.

Notwithstanding these comments, the authors have done a magnificent job of explaining the current state of knowledge of the brain in a way that can be understood by non-specialists in the area. Each chapter looks at a different aspect, such as the structure of the brain, its development, consciousness, memory, sleep, movement, eye sight, hearing, etc. It really is amazing to read of the complexity of operations that the brain faces in the running of the human body. In terms of multi-tasking, it is beyond comparision, in that we can breath, pump blood, see, hear, taste, move, think, and do many other tasks, all at the same time. Lifting a leg, for example, requires not only a semi-conscious decision to do so, but also umpteen unconscious decisions to adjust muscles elsewhere in the body to compensate for the leg movement and to maintain balance. The eye per se, we learn, is not such a good camera as we would like to believe and a piece of film exposed at the back of the retina would not produce a very good picture. The marvel of eyesight comes from the way the brain manipulates the signals from the eye and produces the virtual reality that we see when we look around.

Interestingly, the authors also make frequent references to various neurological diseases, some very rare and others more common, pointing out the part of the brain that is affected and, where possible, explaining the mechanism.

All in all, this is an entertaining book that I would thoroughly recommend to others.

[Yaser Sulaiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

For beginners who know little about brains, this relatively brief book is certainly a good guide.

The book covers most, if not all, of the major topics that a beginner interested in the brain would want to know: the history of neuroscience; the structure and functions of neurons; the development, anatomy, and supporting structures of the brain; the motor and sensory systems; memory; sleep; emotions; behavior; reasoning; and, of course, consciousness.

Sure, one can learn about such topics at a high level elsewhere for free (Wikipedia, anyone?), but the book combines them in one place and it covers them, and when necessary, some background topics, elegantly. Some topics are not covered in great depth, but this book isn't required to do so: it's a "beginner's guide" after all. Nevertheless, it doesn't shy away from some interesting philosophical discussions, especially in the chapter about consciousness.

On the negative side, there is a lack of explicit references to the studies mentioned throughout the book; apart from the "further reading" appendix and the references at the end the "Eric Chudler's brain facts and figures" one, there are no explicit references. Perhaps I'm asking too much from a guide targeted at beginners, but such references would make it much easier to locate and check the original studies, which is necessary if one wants to determine whether the guide's authors made the correct inferences or not.

Overall, this informative book does a good job at leading the reader to an understanding of neurons, brains, and brain function. If you know little about brains and want to know more, this book is highly recommended.

[Any Length · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative covering all areas of the mind and the body the brain is involved in. I listened to the audio book which means I had no pictures of the brain to reference to. This made it a bit difficult to follow intricate explanations. Nevertheless I found I had no problems in following the book. It explained so much however, that I think I will re-read this book in a little while in order to take it all in.
The reader of this book deserves a medal. He has a very pleasant voice and was able to read even the most tricky medical terms clearly and without it becoming boring. I have listened to books read by him before and will aim to find more.

[Thomas Tsui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compicated, but very nice

[Aldana Al-Maadeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book ! Highly recommended for Neuroscience/medicine/biology students. It helped me a lot in my studies and simplified a lot of concepts.

[Mohammed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Philosophical parts and skipped the Neuroanatomy related sections - that's cos I had enough of medical school. I found it interesting and learnt a few things too.

[Gianfranco Ruffini · Rating 5 out of 5]

A+/priorita' completo. studiare

[Abdulaziz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for anybody who have not read about the brain.
I recommend it for medical students.

[Joana Fernandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introductory guide on the brain. Simple and curious

[Umma]

I can't believe I read this as a teenager lol

[Nafis · Rating 3 out of 5]

متاسفانه ترجمه در قسمتهايى از كتاب بسيار ضعيف بود.