by David J. Linden ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2011
In the meantime, Linden provides a fresh perspective on pleasure and confirms that those who suffer addictions are truly ill...
Journal of Neurophysiology editor in chief Linden (Neuroscience/Johns Hopkins Univ.; The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, 2007) probes the anatomy of pleasure in this review of what happens in the brain when we “feel good.”
The author notes that it was back in the 1950s that McGill University scientists discovered that rats with electrodes implanted in a specific part of their brains would press a lever repeatedly to stimulate the area, to the exclusion of food, water or sex. The human equivalent of this pleasure circuit is the ventral tegmental area (VTA). When certain neurons in this area are excited, they release dopamine to target neurons in the prefrontal cortex and in selected emotional, motivational and memory centers. A dopamine transporter takes up the released dopamine so the cell can fire again. (Cocaine and other drugs block this re-uptake, flooding the circuitry with dopamine to increase the “high.”) Linden details brain-imaging experiments which indicate that the VTA is activated not only to aid human survival by affording the pleasures of eating and the joys of sex, but also in connection with behaviors ranging from consuming fatty foods, charitable giving, exercise, gambling and certain types of learning and ideas. In some people, such behaviors can progress to addiction, a pathological process that changes the structure and function of the VTA, transforming pleasure to craving. The author suggests that the genetic risk of addiction may be as high as 50 percent and involve gene variants in dopamine types and receptors. While this may offer strategies for drugs to fight addiction, it also raises legal and ethical issues should genetic testing be proposed. Linden is clear that there are many unanswered questions. One issue is the concept of pleasure itself. We can define pain with physical descriptors and emotional words, but how and why such a wide range of information inputs and memories should stimulate the VTA is not clear. Regardless, the author is optimistic that eventually technology will refine our understanding.
In the meantime, Linden provides a fresh perspective on pleasure and confirms that those who suffer addictions are truly ill and not just weak-willed losers.Pub Date: April 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02258-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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