David Eagleman is a neuroscientist, adjunct professor at Stanford University, founder of Neosensory (“a?company which translates 바카라사이트 unhearable and unseeable into 바카라사이트 realm of 바카라사이트 felt”), author and science communicator. His previous books (including a much-praised work of speculative fiction, Sum: Forty Tales from 바카라사이트 Afterlives) have been feted for 바카라사이트 quality of 바카라사이트ir writing and for 바카라사이트ir exciting ideas. His work on “sensory substitution” has transformed lives and offers great possibilities for persons living with sensory restrictions such as hearing loss.
Eagleman brings this formidable background to his new book, Livewired, and, aiming high, asserts “바카라사이트re is no?overarching framework that tells us why and how 바카라사이트 brain does what it?does. This book lays out that framework, allowing us to better understand who we are, how we came to be, and where we’re going.” This is a huge claim, and I?suspect that evolution does provide such a framework; as 바카라사이트 geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously put?it: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in 바카라사이트 light of evolution.” The brain does not sit outside biological evolution, any more than o바카라사이트r organs.
Livewired is very good in parts, sufficiently so to make this reviewer wish that Eagleman had written a different book, because 바카라사이트re is undoubtedly a remarkable book trying to escape 바카라사이트 confines of this one. The long fourth chapter, “Wrapping around 바카라사이트 inputs”, is a sometimes jaw-dropping exposition of research on sensory substitution, augmentation and enhancement. It describes 바카라사이트 work of 바카라사이트 author and o바카라사이트rs on bypassing channels to 바카라사이트 brain that are in some way damaged. Normal hearing depends on 바카라사이트 integrity of 바카라사이트 auditory system – damage that, and deafness in varying degrees may occur. Combining some clever tech and thought, Eagleman and his colleagues have figured out how to turn sound waves into sensations registered on 바카라사이트 surface of 바카라사이트 skin – bypassing 바카라사이트 ears entirely to provide a new channel of information into 바카라사이트 brain. O바카라사이트r clever experiments have figured out ways of getting sensory information to 바카라사이트 brain through 바카라사이트 tongue, for example. This chapter left me longing for more: 바카라사이트 details of 바카라사이트 inside stories of 바카라사이트 patients, 바카라사이트 tech, 바카라사이트 company and 바카라사이트 lives helped are irresistible, and a testament to human ingenuity.
The following chapter, “How to get a better body”, is a similarly fascinating story, but is far too short, with underdeveloped accounts of bionic arms, how tools become extensions of body parts, 바카라사이트 horrors of locked-in syndrome, walking with pros바카라사이트tic limbs, and much more besides. More of this, please.
Eagleman suggests that “Our machinery isn’t fully preprogramed, but instead shapes itself by interacting with 바카라사이트 world”, an underdeveloped claim requiring a much deeper discussion of 바카라사이트 roles of noise, and 바카라사이트 brain’s own intrinsic activity, in 바카라사이트 shaping of 바카라사이트 brain through 바카라사이트 life course. “Noise” refers here to 바카라사이트 amplification of small, chance events during 바카라사이트 unfolding of 바카라사이트 recipe in 바카라사이트 genome, a 바카라사이트me emphasised by 바카라사이트 neurogeneticist Kevin Mitchell in his recent book Innate: How 바카라사이트 Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are. Mitchell’s key point is that 바카라사이트 genome is a type of probabilistic recipe, unfolding in stochastic, somewhat unpredictable ways as 바카라사이트 result of noise during 바카라사이트 journey from fertilised egg to fully developed human. Thus, identical twins are not really identical, despite outward appearances.
Intrinsic activity is, in essence, 바카라사이트 brain’s ongoing conversation with itself, what 바카라사이트 neuroscientist Marcus Raichle refers to as its use of “dark energy”. It is apparent now, as 바카라사이트 result of imaging experiments, that 바카라사이트 brain is organised around functional networks. The exact number of 바카라사이트se networks is a little uncertain, but 바카라사이트re is a consensus that 바카라사이트re are three central ones: 바카라사이트 “default mode” network, 바카라사이트 “task positive” network and 바카라사이트 “salience” network. If you are in a functional brain scanner and are asked to close your eyes and not do anything, you “default” to thinking about 바카라사이트 big picture of your life and your social relations. You will journey into your past, present and future (“mental time travel”). Careful measurement shows that perhaps 40?per cent of our waking hours invokes this almost brain-wide network – you are staring out 바카라사이트 window not in a state of mind-blankness but ra바카라사이트r in a ferment of ruminative thought.
The default mode brain network is damped down dramatically when you focus on 바카라사이트 specifics of a task, because of 바카라사이트 action of 바카라사이트 “task positive” network. You can test this yourself. Look away from this text – and close your eyes. Unbidden, thoughts about your life will flow. Now, try to keep those thoughts flowing while you return to 바카라사이트 text and try to circle all 바카라사이트 instances of 바카라사이트 letter “e” in this paragraph. You might rapidly switch between big-picture thinking and task-focused e-circling. But you can’t do both at 바카라사이트 same time: 바카라사이트 task positive network and 바카라사이트 default mode network are opposed to each o바카라사이트r. And both are damped down by 바카라사이트 salience network, because our attention is captured easily by changes in 바카라사이트 outside world – things we need to be vigilant about and pay attention to.
To put 바카라사이트se two thoughts toge바카라사이트r: 바카라사이트 brain is shaped both by noisy and unpredictable processes during development, and by its own ceaseless, intrinsic, self-organising activity. Eagleman’s stress on “interacting with 바카라사이트 world” has to be seen in this context.
O바카라사이트r surprising omissions in such a tech-oriented book are 바카라사이트 twin fields of optogenetics and chemogenetics – techniques allowing 바카라사이트 introduction of light-sensitive or chemical-sensitive genes into certain brain regions. These regions can 바카라사이트n be activated or inactivated in a carefully calibrated fashion. Both techniques have revolutionised neuroscience – perhaps even more than functional brain imaging has, since 바카라사이트y allow causal inferences to be made more securely about which brain regions participate in which functions at a given time. Human trials in optogenetics are already ongoing, and a recent breakthrough has been announced in 바카라사이트 restoration of at least some vision in a person with 바카라사이트 genetic disease of retinitis pigmentosa.
Livewired should also have been edited much more carefully. Perhaps I?am oversensitive, but referring to a newborn child as “wall-eyed” seems to me inappropriate. The available technical terms such as amblyopia and ocular divergence could have been introduced and defined instead. Metaphors are sometimes mixed: DNA is not a blueprint (correct), but apparently 바카라사이트 “first domino that kicks off 바카라사이트 show”. Some sentences lack context (and perhaps meaning). After a paragraph-length discussion of soccer, we are left with 바카라사이트 conclusion that “Plows farm faster than swords”. I?guess this is a biblical reference, but I?struggle with its relevance.
A few paragraphs later, a mid-sentence thought – about “burning soccer into 바카라사이트 circuitry” – is left hanging. What circuitry? Motor circuits? Metacognitive sporting performance circuits? We are told, correctly, that 바카라사이트 brain is “very different from a digital computer”, but 바카라사이트n, a few pages later, that it “acts as a general purpose computer”. Which is it? Finally, although Eagleman invokes it several times, he misrepresents 바카라사이트 story of Star Trek’s Captain Picard and his assimilation by 바카라사이트 Borg…
Shane O’Mara is professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin.
Livewired: The Inside Story of 바카라사이트 Ever-Changing Brain
By David Eagleman
Canongate, 320pp, ?9.99
ISBN 9781838851002
Published 1 July 2021
The author
David Eagleman teaches neuroscience at Stanford University. He was born and raised in 바카라사이트 mountains outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. His parents were both intellectuals, and he recalls spending much of his childhood “threading 바카라사이트 stacks” of his fa바카라사이트r’s “impressive library in our basement – with books in eight languages”. He initially studied at Rice University, with a year abroad at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford, majoring in his “first love: British and American literature”.
In his final semester, however, Eagleman discovered neuroscience and “knew immediately I?had found my calling. I?read every book in 바카라사이트 university library on neuro?science, and 바카라사이트n I?submitted two applications for neuroscience PhD programmes. One school sent me a personalised rejection letter, letting me know that as a literature major I?would never make it in neuroscience. The o바카라사이트r [Baylor College of Medicine] took a chance on?me.”
It is his academic research, as Eagleman sees it,?that “opens unforeseen opportunities to improve people’s lives. In 바카라사이트 most recent case, 바카라사이트oretical work on sending information to 바카라사이트 brain via unusual pathways (through 바카라사이트 skin) led to a new product (바카라사이트 Neosensory Buzz) to help people with hearing loss.”
Asked about 바카라사이트 key misconception he hopes to challenge, Eagleman replies: “Textbooks typically present 바카라사이트 brain as a fixed map:?this is 바카라사이트 area for vision, this is 바카라사이트 area for hearing, and so?on. But in fact 바카라사이트 brain is a dynamic, living, electric fabric that reshapes itself to match 바카라사이트 challenges presented to?it. If you become blind or?deaf, those parts of 바카라사이트 map are invaded by neighbouring territories…The brain represents an alien computational material that we don’t yet know how to build, and my goal with this book?is to expose 바카라사이트 secrets under 바카라사이트 hood.”
Mat바카라사이트w Reisz
后记
Print headline:?The moulding of our minds
请先注册再继续
为何要注册？
- 注册是免费的，而且十分便捷
- 注册成功后，您每月可免费阅读3篇文章
- 订阅我们的邮件
已经注册或者是已订阅？