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THE BRAIN'S WAY OF HEALING

Name: THE BRAIN'S WAY OF HEALING
Author: Norman Doidge
ISBN: 978-0670025503

REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES AND RECOVERIES FROM THE FRONTIERS OF NEUROPLASTICITY

by Norman Doidge ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 27, 2015

A lively, anecdotal account of potential new directions that may point the way to major therapeutic breakthroughs.

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Doidge (Psychiatry/Univ. of Toronto; The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, 2007) reports on continuing advances in our understanding of the human brain and its unique way of healing.

The author's first book chronicled revolutionary new insights into how the brain can be helped to restructure itself in response to injury. Here, Doidge interviews a second generation of “scientists, doctors and patients,” whom he calls “neuroplasticians.” He recounts his discussion with an American physician specializing in the treatment of chronic pain who pioneered a new method using mental imagery, after he suffered a serious injury. Doidge visited with a controversial 77-year-old sufferer of Parkinson's disease who claims to have been able to reverse his symptoms (and slow the underlying process of deterioration) by focused exercise. One of the most fascinating characters is an Israeli medical practitioner who developed a unique healing method for patients suffering muscular injuries, based on insights from the practice of jujitsu. Doidge uses these and other clinical accounts to illustrate what he claims are three fundamental processes that can be tapped to unleash the brain's healing capacity: the necessity of countering the brain's adaptation to a lost function by “learned nonuse”; the importance of isolating damaged neurons from healthy ones; and the significance of recognizing that “the organic living brain is quite the opposite of an engineered machine with hardwired circuits that can perform only a limited number of actions that it has been designed to do.” Doidge’s takeaway message is that mental activity correlates with neuronal activity, but we still do not know where thought takes place. “This mystery of the mind remains unsolved,” he writes.

A lively, anecdotal account of potential new directions that may point the way to major therapeutic breakthroughs.

Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015

ISBN: 978-0670025503

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.