Bookforum - The Way Our Brains Work

Nerve fiber image from the [Paul] Allen Institute for Brain Science

Here is another cool collection of links from Bookforum, this time on the human brain and related topics - it was posted last Friday. Favorites among these include the interview by Jonah Lehrer with Allan Jones of the Allen Institute for Brain Science (nice to see billionaires putting some of the money to good use) and John Searle's mixed review of Antonio Damasio's Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain - it's always interesting when a philosopher reviews work by a neuroscientist.

The way our brains work

Jun 17 2011

• Could conjoined twins share a mind? Susan Dominus on the miraculous life of Tatiana and Krista Hogan and what it could reveal about the human brain.
  
• A review of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman (and more and more and more and more and more and more).
  
• Is it really how you play the game? No, say our brains — winning and losing matter, at least if you’re the loser.
  
• Are emoticons and other image-based communications changing the way our brains work?
  
• John Searle reviews Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio.
  
• The Biology of Ethics: Morality is all in our brains, says the philosopher Patricia Churchland (and a review of Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality).
  
• A review of The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer.
  
• Dreams of Meaning: Jonathan Camery-Hoggatt on where religion and neuroscience can’t compete.
  
• An interview with David J. Linden, author of The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good.
  
• The next giant leap in human evolution may not come from new fields like genetic engineering or artificial intelligence, but rather from appreciating our ancient brains.
  
• The human brain gets a new map: Jonah Lehrer interviews Allan Jones, the CEO of the Paul Allen Institute for Brain Science.
  
• Here's a peek at what the brain looks like, from antiquity to present-day.
  
• How the brain got its buttocks: Sixteenth-century anatomists couldn't keep their minds out of the gutter.
  
• A 2,500-year-old preserved human brain has been discovered.
  
• A special head and brain issue of the Annals of Improbable Research is now online.

Tags: Bookforum, The Way Our Brains Work, Psychology, brain, consciousness, books, mind, self, emotions, morality, winning and losing, ethics, neuroscience, neurobiology, religion, dreams, evolution, brain imaging