The Future of the Brain Essays by the World's Leading Neuroscientists

"A wonderful way to launch yourself into the exciting world of twenty-first-century neuroscience, whether you are a scientist or an intellectually curious layperson. The power in this sampler is that the coverage is not just technical but conceptual: the essays probe the ways in which an understanding of the brain will and won't illuminate the mind, and they do so with depth and balance rather than the usual breathless hype."--Steven Pinker, author of "The Language Instinct" and "How the Mind Works" "Have you ever wondered what's coming around the bend in terms of new insights into how the brain works? Open the pages of "The Future of the Brain" to find out. Gary Marcus and Jeremy Freeman have brought together some of the leading thinkers and researchers to share their vision of where we are headed. It's a fun, readable book full of insights."--Joseph LeDoux, author of "The Emotional Brain" and "Synaptic Self" "A deep, intriguing view into the most exciting advances in neuroscience. "The Future of the Brain" is a nuanced and thought-provoking guide to what we do and don't know about the human brain--and what we may or may not one day find out."--Maria Konnikova, author of "Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes" "Understanding, theorizing, and simulating the human brain are essential goals for twenty-first-century science and engineering. Surfing the fine line between science and science fiction, this book is a treasure trove of daring ideas."--Stanislas Dehaene, author of "Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts" "The brain is a complicated thing, and progress in understanding how it works may seem slow. Will creating huge research teams, collecting more data at higher resolutions, and sharing data more widely and openly kick-start a new wave of progress? Or does the field still need to make conceptual leaps before the results would even make sense? Brilliant minds on both sides describe their visions of the future of neuroscience in this collection of short, engaging essays."--Christopher Chabris, coauthor of "The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us" "Massive technological advances promise rapid and profound discoveries in neuroscience, with very broad implications for our understanding of behavior, ethics, and even religion. Featuring contributions by acknowledged experts, this collection provides a fascinating look at what is happening in the 'big science' of the brain."--Michael C. Corballis, author of "The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization"