Brainscapes: An Atlas of Your Life on Earth

Description

Your brain is a collection of maps. That is no metaphor: scrawled across your brain's surfaces are actual schematic images of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival. Scientists first began uncovering these maps over a century ago, but we are only now beginning to unlock their secrets. Our inner cartography distorts and shapes our experience of the world, supporting complex thought, and making technology-enabled mind-reading a reality. The maps in our brain invite us to view ourselves from a startling new perspective. In Brainscapes, Rebecca Schwarzlose combines unforgettable real-life stories, cutting-edge research, and vivid illustrations to reveal brain maps' surprising lessons about our place in the world - and the world's place within us.

Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist at Washington University in Saint Louis. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT and has served as chief editor of the scholarly journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. She lives in Saint Louis.

'Enlightening and ambitious... a book that travels into rich terrain, charted by a smart and eager tour guide' - New York Times 'Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist with a novelist's literary flair. Brainscapes is a profoundly illuminating account of how the brain works - and of how the maps within our heads determine what we see, recognize, remember, and feel. It's about miracles, and it's a complete inspiration' - Cass R. Sunstein, author 'Clear, often vivid history' - Nature 'This book is the Lonely Planet travel guide to the brain. With humility, humor, and the familiarity of a local, Rebecca Schwarzlose takes you by the hand and shows you around some of the strangest landscapes of the cortex. In Brainscapes, the brain becomes an open atlas, full of illuminating maps - just one of many enlightening metaphors in this meticulously documented and artfully decorated book' - Stanislas Dehaene, author 'In lively prose, Schwarzlose introduces you to your inner cartographer: a complex brain that continuously constructs shifting maps of the world, charted from the perspective of your own body. These maps are not just created by you - they are you. They conjure what you feel, what you remember, and what you do' - Lisa Feldman Barrett, author