Tales from Both Sides of the Brain (Enhanced Edition) (Enhanced Edition)
A Life in Neuroscience
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
With extensive video footage of his trailblazing cognitive experiments, Michael Gazzaniga—the “father of cognitive neuroscience”—illuminates the discoveries behind his groundbreaking work in this enhanced digital edition of Tales from Both Sides of the Brain.
Michael S. Gazzaniga, one of the most important neuroscientists of the twentieth century, gives us an exciting behind-the-scenes look at his seminal work on that unlikely couple, the right and left brain. Foreword by Steven Pinker.
In the mid-twentieth century, Michael S. Gazzaniga, “the father of cognitive neuroscience,” was part of a team of pioneering neuroscientists who developed the now foundational split-brain brain theory: the notion that the right and left hemispheres of the brain can act independently from one another and have different strengths.
In Tales from Both Sides of the Brain, Gazzaniga tells the impassioned story of his life in science and his decades-long journey to understand how the separate spheres of our brains communicate and miscommunicate with their separate agendas. By turns humorous and moving, Tales from Both Sides of the Brain interweaves Gazzaniga’s scientific achievements with his reflections on the challenges and thrills of working as a scientist. In his engaging and accessible style, he paints a vivid portrait not only of his discovery of split-brain theory, but also of his comrades in arms—the many patients, friends, and family who have accompanied him on this wild ride of intellectual discovery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gazzaniga (Who's in Charge?), who helped develop the left-right theory of the brain, tells a winding tale of a life lived in science and the joys of bringing science to the public. Gazzaniga's work on the "split brain" case studies spanned decades, universities, and medical schools, but as he makes clear, there's much more to a life than the pursuit of science as a career. Outside his research, Gazzaniga kept busy by organizing public debates featuring William F. Buckley Jr. and others, which led Buckley to invite him on Firing Line and to write pieces for National Review, including a spoof of the Pentagon Papers. But the substance of his work with patients is also covered in exhaustive detail that conveys how science is made: "slowly, with lots of people contributing." Less successfully, episodes from Gazzaniga's personal life marriages, burials, new houses, job searches are also included. Perhaps these show the contours of an academic life, but they read drily. Gazzaniga's book is of great interest to those embarking on careers in pure research, and to anyone intrigued by the story of one of the greatest discoveries in cognition.
