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Connectome: How The Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are (2012)

by Sebastian Seung(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0547508182 (ISBN13: 9780547508184)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

review 1: This book unifies a lot of information about models of brain function and the state of our understanding of the brain. It highlights a potential approach to understanding the brain: mapping the connection diagram of a brain, aka a connectome. The main hypothesis is that the connections of the neurons mostly determine how the brain works. Genes, learning, environment all converge in this wiring, but it is the wiring alone that mostly determines who you are, mentally, at any given time. The book is helpful even if you disagree with the main hypothesis, because it covers historical approaches to understanding the brain and their shortcomings. Starting from phrenology in the 18th century, and moving forward to the discovery of neurons and attempts at classifying areas of the b... morerain. Finally, Seung explains one of the current frontiers: the challenge of mapping a brain neuron by neuron and what it could mean for our understanding of the brain. By the end of the book one feels convinced that many of our difficulties in understanding how the brain functions might lie simply in our current inability to observe the the physical connections and handle the large amount of image data generated fast enough.
review 2: A cute little book in which Mr. Seung makes some bold claims wrapped up in a very accessible package. His insights come with a wealth of examples and explanations like the weighted voting system of neurons which is an approximation of the way neurons function to determine our actions.All in all a very enjoyable book, which delves deep into the theoretical hypotheses under scrutiny at the moment in neuroscience, albeit in a very pleasant style. less

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