Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

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Loved his use of popular science fiction examples to illustrate (Aliens franchise, Star Trek, Terminator etc. Excellent book about the plasticity of the brain -- about how every experience we have changes the brain, and about how the brain maximizes it resources to interpret the data coming in from our senses. You’ll learn just how resilient and flexible our brains can be, and how technology is still nowhere close to being as powerful as them.

g. the light sensors in your eye, the air-pressure sensors in your ear, or vibrations from a wrist band — and turn it into meaning.I really loved Eagleman's discussion of the waterfall effect, and how it doesn't represent, as is often though, fatigue of sensory neurons, but actually represents an active recalibration. Eagleman is particularly qualified to talk about this not only a neuroscientist, but also as an inventor creating a whole new frontier of livewiring via his company NeoSensory. Not convinced about the idea that the main purpose of dreaming is to stop the visual cortex from reconfiguring after sunset. Särskilt beskriver David Eagleman hur hjärnan har förmågan att tolka komplicerade signaler från sensoriska organ och av dessa ta till vara på den i stunden relevanta informationen. Particularly in the first chapter, the writing was very jerky, suddenly changing topic, even telling half a story then abruptly switching to something else before coming back to the original subject again.

Astonishing visual illusions will make you doubt your own sanity, and the stories will make for excellent fodder for all the cocktail parties you're not attending. Exempelvis skickar småbarns hjärnor ut slumpvis genererade signaler till musklerna som de sedan får direkt feedback från syn, känsel och balans. Eagleman packs this book chock full with basic neuroscience knowledge - what we currently know about how the brain works, and we're only just scratching the surface - illustrated by rich, captivating examples. Surf the leading edge of neuroscience atop the anecdotes and metaphors that have made Eagleman one of the best scientific translators of our generation. Registered office address: Unit 34 Vulcan House Business Centre, Vulcan Road, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE5 3EF.

Follow Eagleman on a thrilling journey to discover how a child can function with one half of his brain removed, how a blind man can hit a baseball via a sensor on his tongue, how new devices and body plans can enhance our natural capacities, how paralyzed people will soon be able to dance in thought-controlled robotic suits, how we can build the next generation of devices based on the principles of the brain, and what all this has to do with why we dream at night. Ljudboken läser Eagleman upp mycket entusiastiskt vilket gör det hela till en mycket trevlig och framförallt spännande lyssning.

Particularly loved thinking about how our brain re-wires itself to new body plans, and was telling my spouse about this as they just had eye surgery and were adapting to their "new eyes" :) Real life applicability! Eagleman’s infectious enthusiasm, his use of fascinating anecdotes, and his clear, effortless prose render the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner. g. the brain as an information-maximizing machine; the basis of synesthesia; and the purpose of dreaming (hint: so you don't go blind). Informationen måste vara viktig, den behöver inte vara relevant för något grundläggande behov men tillräckligt betydelsefull för att en förändring skall vara motiverad. Using vests and wristbands that transduce outside information like sound or light into mechanical vibrations, NeoSensory is not only giving back some sight and hearing ability back to those who have lost it; it is also creating whole new senses that didn't even exist before: "We tapped into the lidar stream [at Google headquarters] and hooked it up to the Vest.I found factual inaccuracies in the book that I know to be inaccurate because there were about my own field of expertise. It's not that the idea of the brain as a self-patterning system that adapts and changes as inputs vary is new, but the sheer depth and speed of the phenomenon is only relatively recently understood and Eagleman gives us a very wide range of examples, from a young child who had half his brain removed, but developed normally, the remaining half taking on all the roles of the other, to the remarkably short term adaptations that enable us to cope with, for example, changes in lighting colour and intensity. The brain is a dynamic system, constantly modifying its own circuitry to match the demands of the environment and the body in which it finds itself. For example, Eagleman spends two pages telling us why the English colonists beat the French colonists in the US simply to make the point that a part of the brain that no longer sends information loses territory. For example, you might be able to use feedback from your partner's body to be more in tune with their emotional states via wearable sensory devices.