An easy-to-read journey through the world of brain research that gives a glimpse of what is happening there, all done with a...
A British science writer uses her own brain to explore what researchers have been working on and to discover how her own shortcomings might be overcome.
In her debut book, Williams, a consultant for New Scientist magazine and a contributor to the BBC and the Guardian, asks whether recent advances in technology can improve some of her cognitive abilities. She chose six specific areas of focus—attention, anxiety, creativity, navigation, time perception, and number sense—each of which is currently receiving intensive study by neuroscientists and psychologists, in order to understand how performance can be improved. Among other places, the author’s research travels took her to centers in Boston, Philadelphia, and Lawrence, Kansas, in the United States, Oxford and Keele universities in England, and Ghent University in Belgium. She briefly profiles the researchers and chronicles her informative interviews with them, also noting her personal experiences with whatever system they were working on. The conditions of Williams’ participation vary, and so do the results, often displayed in simple charts and diagrams that add little to the text except perhaps a slight scientific air. Readers hoping to improve their own cognitive abilities may feel a bit of a letdown by the author’s old-fashioned, down-to-earth advice: exercise your body, preferably outdoors, learn mindful meditation but also allow your mind to wander, engage in a mentally challenging hobby, and pick the skill you want to improve and practice it in real life. In the concluding chapter, Williams reports that the world of neuroscience is “teetering on the brink of a new world,” and based on the advances already underway, the future is likely to be full of technological innovations that may well enhance one’s brain power.
An easy-to-read journey through the world of brain research that gives a glimpse of what is happening there, all done with a highly personal touch.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63388-391-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing look at suicide weighed down by dense facts and figures.
A mechanical engineer zeroes in on the physiological dynamics of the brain in a valiant effort to explain suicide and make sense of his son’s death.
In 2002, Sanchez’s son Mitchell Xavier killed himself after suffering for years from depression and panic attacks. Unsatisfied with current therapies and methods of pharmacology, the author has written two previous books searching for clues to the causes of depression and other brain disorders. This third book continues the hunt, focusing on aftoktognosis, which the author defines as the knowledge of suicide. Despite a tendency to indulge in a deluge of statistics, Sanchez offers wise and elegant words–written by the likes of Andrew Solomon and Kay Redfield James–to bring dry facts to life. The centerpiece of the book is an exhaustive, often tedious exploration of the brain based on modern neurological theory, which concludes with a lengthy description of brain mechanics and the chemical changes that may lead to panic attacks, depression and suicide. A more successful section devoted to a catalogue of mental disorders is made memorable by the inclusion of the author’s personal experiences. In a brief, moving passage, Sanchez reveals that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder in the months following his son’s suicide–anxiety disrupted his sleep and visions of Mitchell’s death haunted his waking hours. Later in the book, a suicide autopsy–a fascinating investigation into why a promising lawyer overdosed on pills–makes a convincing case that the many theories currently in play among psychiatrists and psychologists may work against each other, complicating the potential for prevention. Perhaps the most innovative theory presented involves the idea that the loss of a sense of self–otherwise known as idiozimia–may be the prerequisite for suicidal behavior. Sanchez ultimately concludes that saving a person from suicide depends on a more accurate assessment of risk and a deeper understanding of this tragic phenomenon through collaboration and communication.
An intriguing look at suicide weighed down by dense facts and figures.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4257-7990-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It may come as a surprise that there are still scientific dissenters from Darwinism, but here's the proof, in a book that calls on biologists to put organisms, not molecules, at the center of the science. Goodwin (Biology/Milton Keynes College, England) begins with the proposition that specifying the chemical composition of a substance tells us nothing about its form: graphite, diamonds, and fullerenes all consist of pure carbon but differ radically in shape. Similarly, where many biologists assume that the makeup of an organism's DNA tells them all they need to know about it, Goodwin brings to the table the disciplines of physics and mathematics. He applies the insights of chaos theory to the activity of an ant's nest and to children's play, to the growth of slime molds and algae, and to fibrillation in the human heart. An older mathematical discovery, the Fibonacci series (in which each new number is the sum of its two immediate predecessors), appears to play a role in the position of leaves on a branch, as well as in the structure of quadruped limbs. But as important as his specific illustrations of his points is his contention that Darwinism has taken on a rhetoric not dissimilar to the Puritan ethic, with each organism struggling to overcome a harsh world and become fitter. Eventually, he believes, Darwinian natural selection will be seen as part of a larger physical and mathematical structure, in which the entire organism, as opposed to its DNA alone, is seen in context. In the concluding chapter, he cites several biologists who are working toward a comprehensive new biology, in which the rights of organisms and of nature are set against the claims of genetic engineering and other forms of meddling with the environment. An often exciting look at frontiers of biology beyond the well-tilled fields of gene research. (68 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-544710-6
Page Count: 243
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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