V. S. Ramachandran

Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments -- using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we're so clever at philosophy, music and art. Some of his most notable cases: A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud's theory of denial. A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be "wired" for religious experience? A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time. Dr. Ramachandran's inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine's last great frontier -- the human mind -- yielding new and provocative insights into the "big questions" about consciousness and the self.

Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Phantoms in the Brain

The "Marco Polo of Neuroscience" traces the links between neurology and behavior and discusses how normal brain function evolves through the examination of several baffling and extreme case studies and describes a new direction for the treatment of autism.

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

A scintillating introduction to the latest thinking on the brain and the mind by the world's leading expert. Neuroscience can now begin to unlock the key to the self. Our knowledge of the brain has progressed so rapidly that it will change the way we think of ourselves as human beings. It will change our notion of understanding. This is a revolution which will have impact on all our lives. Neuroscientists are gathering new empirical evidence about consciousness and human nature; they are picking up where the great earlier thinkers like Freud, Darwin, Charcot and others began. This evidence begins to give substance to some of the grand statements and intuitive leaps made in the nineteenth and early twentieth century about the nature of the self.

The Reith Lectures 2003

The Emerging Mind

Sandra Blakeslee

Using a series of case studies, 'Phantoms in the brain' introduces a strange and unexplored mental world. Ramachandran, through his research into brain damage, has discovered that the brain can react in strange ways to major physical changes.

Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind

John, aged sixty, suffered a stroke and recovered fully, except in one respect: although he can see perfectly, he can no longer recognise faces, even his own reflection in a mirror. Whenever Francesca touches a particular texture, she experiences a vivid emotion: denim = extreme sadness; wax = embarrassment; orange peel = shock. Jimmie, whose left arm was recently amputated, can still feel it - and it's itchy. Our brains are the most enchanting and complex things in the known universe - but what happens when they go wrong? Dr V. S. Ramachandran, 'the Sherlock Holmes of brain science' and one of the world's leading neuroscientists, has spent a lifetime working with patients who suffer from rare and baffling brain conditions. In The Tell-Tale Brain, he tells their stories, and explores what they reveal about the greatest mystery of them all: how our minds work, and what makes each of us so uniquely human.

Tales of the Unexpected from Inside Your Mind

The Tell-tale Brain

Explores why the human brain is so unique and how it became so enchantingly complex. This title reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about the brain and how it evolved.

unlocking the mystery of human nature

The tell-tale brain

insan zihninin gizemlerine doğru

Beyindeki hayaletler

El eminente neurólogo Vilanayur S. Ramachandran investiga en esta obra diversos casos extraños y significativos -desde pacientes que creen estar muertos hasta los que padecen el síndrome del miembro fantasma- y nos expone una perspectiva inédita de los misterios del cerebro humano. ¿Por qué unos somos más creativos que otros? ¿Qué provoca el autismo y cómo se podría detectar y tratar? ¿Por qué consideramos hermosas ciertas cosas? ¿Cómo evolucionó el lenguaje? ¿Y cómo crea el cerebro algo tan inaprensible como el “sentido del yo”?... Son algunos de los extraordinarios misterios neurológicos que aborda el autor esta obra de referencia. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran es un neurocientífico extraordinariamente intuitivo, al estilo de Sherlock Holmes, que investiga algunas manifestaciones neurológicas desconcertantes, como las de los pacientes que desean que les sea amputado un brazo o una pierna sanos, o a los individuos aquejados del síndrome de Capgras, que creen que sus seres queridos son unos impostores. El autor nos explica estas conductas extravagantes partiendo del funcionamiento interno del cerebro, exponiéndonos al propio tiempo los avances recientes de la neurociencia, y nos revela lo que estos casos tan poco habituales nos enseñan sobre el cerebro humano normal y su singular evolución. Combinando la seriedad del investigador y la voluntad divulgativa de quien desea acercar los temas científicos al público no especializado, Ramachandran aborda brillantemente todas las cuestiones relacionadas con los misterios y extraordinarias capacidades del cerebro humano.

Los misterios de la mente humana al descubierto

Lo que el cerebro nos dice

O Que O Cerebro Tem Para Contar

The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior is a comprehensive four-volume reference source on human action and reaction, and the thoughts, feelings, and physiological functions behind those actions. Presented alphabetically by title, 250 articles probe both enduring and exciting new topics in physiological psychology, perception, personality, abnormal and clinical psychology, cognition and learning, social psychology, developmental psychology, language, and applied contexts. Written by leading scientists in these disciplines, every article has been peer-reviewed to establish clarity, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. The first reference source to provide both depth and breadth to the study of human behavior, the encyclopedia promises to be a much used reference source. This set appeals to public, corporate, university and college libraries, libraries in two-year colleges and some secondary schools

Encyclopedia of Human Behavior: Cop-I

Brian David Josephson

Edited Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Symposium on Consciousness Held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978

Consciousness and the Physical World

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

"How can people come to believe that their poodle is an impostor? Or see colors in numbers? Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, said of V. S. Ramachandran's first book, "The patients he describes are fascinating, and his experiments on them are both simple and ingenious." With his unique energy and style Ramachandran now shares his insights into the mind from such everyday human experiences as pain, sight, and the appreciation of beauty to the ultimate philosophical conundrums of consciousness."--BOOK JACKET.

From Imposter Poodles to Purple Numbers

A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness

V této své zásadní knize neurovědec V. S. Ramachandran bere čtenáře na prohlídku různých aspektů lidského vnímání. Přibližuje nejvzrušivější a nejkontroverznější témata v současné neurovědě a ukazuje zvláštní spojení mezi neurologií a lidským chováním. Autor, nazývaný též Galileem neurovědy či novodobým Markem Polem, cestujícím k exotickým a neobvyklým místům mysli, odhaluje různorodá tajemství a schopnosti mozku. Prozkoumává a vysvětluje bizarní chování i neurální mechanismy, které jsou základem duševních poruch, jako je porucha tělesné identity či Capgrasův syndrom. Svá zjištění a porozumění mozkovým záhadám ilustruje případovými studiemi pacientů a ukazuje nám, jak nečekaně spolu tyto fascinující případy souvisejí. Jeho objevy nám poskytují nová vodítka k pochopení toho, jak se náš mozek začal neurologicky odlišovat od zvířecího a začal být fundamentálně lidský. Kniha se snaží nalézt odpovědi na otázky jako například: Jak se vyvinul jazyk? Proč shledáváme určité věci krásnými? Proč jsou někteří z nás tvořivější než jiní? Jak mozek vytváří pocit vlastního já? Proč někdy člověk na bolest reaguje smíchem? Co je příčinou autismu a jak je možné jej rozpoznat a léčit? Proč lidé se záchvatovitými onemocněními spánkových laloků věří, že prožívají bezprostřední setkání s Bohem, a objevuje se u nich hypergrafie, nekontrolovatelná potřeba psát? Proč se pacienti s poškozeným pravým temenním lalokem, jinak inteligentní a zcela při smyslech, odmítají hlásit ke své levé paži? Proč se na kost vyhublá anorektička s naprosto zdravým zrakem při pohledu do zrcadla prohlásí za obézní?

V. S. Ramachandran

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