Phantoms in the Brain (edit title)

Timothy Gray approved Ulrich’s request to change the title of Phantoms in the Brain Tuesday, November 3 2009.

Ulrich changed the title of Phantoms in the Brain Tuesday, November 3 2009.

Shelfari edited the description of Phantoms in the Brain Saturday, August 1 2009.

• Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments -- using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we're so clever at philosophy, music and art. Some of his most notable cases: A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud's theory of denial. A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be "wired" for religious experience? A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time. Dr. Ramachandran's inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine's last great frontier -- the human mind -- yielding new and provocative insights into the "big questions" about consciousness and the self.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Phantoms in the Brain Wednesday, July 22 2009.

• Added a contributor: V. S. Ramachandran: (Primary Author)
• Added a contributor: Sandra Blakeslee: (Primary None)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Phantoms in the Brain Friday, July 17 2009.

• A man wearing a enormous bejeweled cross dangling on a gold chain sits in my office, telling me about his conversations with God, the "real meaning" of the cosmos and the deeper truth behind all surface appear.