INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

Historical highlights in our evolving concept of what brains are and can do, from ancient Egypt on.

For readers curious about that “lumpy, oatmeal-y, very important thing you keep inside your head,” the authors present a string of astonishing, sometimes stirringly gruesome revelations. Beginning with an ancient physician’s note about how it feels to poke a living brain exposed by a massive head wound, the narrative winds past 18th-century scientist Luigi Galvani’s electrical experiments with frog legs to the case of Phineas Gage, a 19th-century railroad worker who took an iron rod through his head and suffered only personality changes. From there, Unwin and neurologist Barry explore discoveries about split and damaged brains, neurodivergence, and mapping brain functions on the way to an enlightening comparison of how AI compares to natural brains and predictions of possible future developments in mental remote control and communication. They close with a “Neuroscience Hall of Fame” profiling a gallery of racially diverse researchers, like the generic human figures that Contreras intersperses among her views of dancing lab kittens, rats, and frogs. Sidebars with tests and experiments invite readers to try their hand at some of the science.

Lighthearted and truly mind-bending.