THE AGING BRAIN

Name: THE AGING BRAIN
Author: Lawrence Whalley
ISBN: 0-231-12024-9

by Lawrence Whalley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2001

Although the chapter headings often have a free-and-easy tone (“Any Cook Could Run the Country”; “Tired of Living and Scared...

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An optimistic look at what current research is revealing about the brain in the final decades of life.

Whalley (Mental Health/Univ. of Aberdeen), a brain researcher working on the molecular biology of aging, holds out hope of “fitter old brains for fitter old people.” After a brief examination of theories of aging, he discusses the healthy brain and how it works. The good news: it is now clear that the brain retains some developmental capacity throughout life and that, while there is selective loss of neurons with aging, surviving brain cells make new connections, preserving the brain’s essential circuitry. The possibility that the brain may be able to compensate for its aging and that damage to brain cells may be preventable and even reversible could transform our expectations of old age, he notes. Whalley also examines the social and psychological aspects of aging, focusing on the mental abilities that change consistently with age. He addresses three questions: Is brain aging general or selective? Do brain-aging changes occur at random? Does aging drain the brain’s overall capacity? Whalley then discusses studies relevant to answering these questions. He surveys research into dementia, especially in Alzheimer’s disease, and reports on the progress being made in understanding the causes of this disorder and possible therapeutic approaches. In his final chapter, he looks at environmental influences on brain aging and considers how computer technology might enhance the psychological lives of the very old at the same time that advances in molecular biology are improving their physical lives.

Although the chapter headings often have a free-and-easy tone (“Any Cook Could Run the Country”; “Tired of Living and Scared of Dying”), the demanding text is clearly aimed at serious readers. (13 illustrations)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-231-12024-9

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Columbia Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | PSYCHOLOGY

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MASTERY

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...

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Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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THE RIGHT STUFF

by Tom Wolfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 1979

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Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.

But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.

But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.