The idea of the brain The past and future of neuroscience

Cobb (Univ. of Manchester) offers a comprehensive history of neuroscience for consumption by a general but educated audience. The text spans centuries of scientific, philosophical, and medical advances, emphasizing how cultural context provided luminaries of the past with technological tools and analogies for improved comprehension of the brain and its processes. The progression is illustrated critically and extensively, as Cobb eloquently narrates how each step in the historical development of the field fits into the modern conceptual terrain of brain science. One minor quibble: although featured in the title, the future is relegated to only a short section that appears as part of the final chapter. A college-level grasp of neuroscience, physics, or computer science will be helpful for understanding some of Cobb's technical descriptions, but readers with only an introductory background in biology will be comfortable following his narrative and will surely appreciate his plentiful anecdotes. This book is written for anyone interested in knowing how the brain functions and is particularly appropriate for college students enrolled in neuroscience or science history courses. More advanced academics in relevant fields will find their professional thinking enriched by the depth and color this text provides with respect to the history of their discipline. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Keith Feigenson, Albright College

A fresh history and tour d' horizon of "the most complex object in the known universe." Although scientists still struggle to understand the brain, they know a great deal about it; Cobb, a professor of biological sciences, delivers an excellent overview. No one experiences his or her brain, but even the ancients were conscious of their heart, so deep thinkers, led by Aristotle, concluded that it governed human actions, perceptions, and emotions. Some Greeks experimented--on live animals; Cobb's descriptions are not for the squeamish--but "they merely showed that the brain was complicated. Aristotle's heart-centered view remained enormously influential, partly because of his immense prestige but above all because it corresponded to everyday experience." Matters changed only with the scientific revolution, and Cobb writes a riveting account of four centuries of brain research that soon revealed its structure and made slower but steady progress describing its functions, which depend on complex brain cells, neurons, that communicate with each other through electrical signals but don't actually touch. The author ends the "history" section and begins "present" in the mid-20th century. This may puzzle readers, but he has a point. "Since the 1950s," he writes, "our ideas have been dominated by concepts that surged from biology into computing--feedback loops, information, codes and computation, but…some of the most brilliant and influential theoretical intuitions about how nervous systems might 'compute' have turned out to be completely wrong." Although the computer metaphor is showing its age, the digital revolution has produced dazzling progress, allowing scientists to study individual neurons, localize brain activity in living subjects, and manipulate objects by thinking. Cobb concludes that this avalanche of new knowledge hasn't brought us nearer the holy grail of brain research--a neural correlate of consciousness--or led to dramatic advances in treating mental illness or paralysis, but these will happen…eventually. A lucid account of brain research, our current knowledge, and problems yet to be solved. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.