Runaway species: how human creativity remakes the world
- Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd, 2017.
- 296 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The brain is typically portrayed as an organ with a map of regions dedicated to specific tasks. But, says acclaimed neuroscientist and bestselling author David Eagleman, that textbook model is wrong. The brain is a dynamic system; the connections between its cells are constantly blossoming, dying and reconfiguring. Drawing on up-to-the-minute research, Eagleman takes us on a fascinating journey into brain plasticity to discover how a child can function with one half of his brain removed and how a blind mountain climber can use an electrode grid on his tongue to 'see'. He proves how the brain optimizes its circuitry based on the tasks relevant to goals and survival and how this knowledge opens the door to dazzling new technologies. The magic of our brains lies in the way they unceasingly re-weave themselves to form an electric, living fabric. Eagleman gets to the heart of who we are and how the brain plasticity revolution is lighting up the path of the future by analysing how our most vital organ works in a way that has never been done before.