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A review by mythreyiramesh
Phantoms In The Brain: Human Nature And The Architecture Of The Mind by V.S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee
4.0
This was the first book by Prof. VS Ramachandran on his experiments as a neuroscientist and a brain detective and it is a fascinating read.
The book talks in detail about the different curious quirks of the brain that gets unearthed by the ingenious experiments by Prof. Ramachandran and his students on the patients who come to him with some disorder in their brain.
The repeated point that's highlighted by him throughout this book as well as his other works is that, when some part of the brain is affected, it doesn't lead to an overall blunting of the person's mental abilities. Instead, a very specific function gets disturbed, which hints that the function was somehow related to the respective part of the brain. This is his approach towards neuroscience, which has led to many dazzling discoveries of the brain and its working, most of which have been talked about in this book.
The only reason I am giving it a 4/5 and not 5/5 is because I felt the last part of the book was rather heavy and it took me a while to get through. But a great read overall, highly recommended.
The book talks in detail about the different curious quirks of the brain that gets unearthed by the ingenious experiments by Prof. Ramachandran and his students on the patients who come to him with some disorder in their brain.
The repeated point that's highlighted by him throughout this book as well as his other works is that, when some part of the brain is affected, it doesn't lead to an overall blunting of the person's mental abilities. Instead, a very specific function gets disturbed, which hints that the function was somehow related to the respective part of the brain. This is his approach towards neuroscience, which has led to many dazzling discoveries of the brain and its working, most of which have been talked about in this book.
The only reason I am giving it a 4/5 and not 5/5 is because I felt the last part of the book was rather heavy and it took me a while to get through. But a great read overall, highly recommended.