book: A Portrait of the Brain

book: A Portrait of the Brain | Adam Zeman ...

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	• A Portrait of the Brain Adam Zeman Yale University Press, 2008 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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A great book conveying scientific knowledge through tales

It is a well written and organized book which provides fundamental knowledge about human brain and some associated neurological diseases. As a student with background out of neuroscience, I could finish reading the book without any difficulty. The book is organized in such a way that readers can gradually learn the fundamental knowledge of brain from one chapter after another to help them understand material in the later chapters. Therefore, readers may not necessarily have solid neuroscience or biological background to start the book.

The book consists of ten chapters, each of which describes one level of human brain, from atom to gene, from protein to neuron, from neural network to lobe. In each chapter, the author talks about scientific exploration, discovery and identification of that specific level of physiological constitution of brain, through a tale of brain disorder related to that constitution. The author had very close contact with, in most case he was directly consulted by, people involved in those tales. Therefore, the stories he presented are vivid and discussed in details.

For example, in chapter one, the author firstly reports a clinical case he had encountered, in which a female patient woke up with a headache and exhaustive feeling in the morning. Although this symptom was alleviated as hours went on, it slowly and surely got worse and worse day after day. The original cause was not identified by the author at that time. Then he started to discuss the fundamental element forming the universe - atom, which most of us have been familiar with. At a first glance, there is no direct relationship between atoms and the patient's problem. However, it turned out to be that the patient's strange symptom was due to the lack of oxygen in brain during sleep. After experiencing a severe coma in one morning, the patient was sent to hospital and diagnosed to have an uncommon muscle disorder, "multicore myopathy", which affected her diaphragm. This muscle is particularly important to us in sleep as gravity no longer keeps our abdominal organs in their place. If the diaphragm fails, breathing in sleep can fail too. This resulted in insufficient oxygen supplying to the brain and caused the headache as well as tiring symptom.

Another chapter, which I personally was impressed with, is chapter 3 introducing protein. It conveys abundant information in a clear organized content and with easy to understand words. Protein as we all know is one of the fundamental substrates to our biology, forming internal structure of our cells, regulating the chemical reactions and as hormones or neurotransmitters. However, not everyone knows that the protein can be infectious and transmit disease from one brain to another. In this chapter, author describes the discovery and identification of a few strange and terrible diseases, including scrapies, kuru, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and CJD (Creutzfelft-Jakob disease), which had occurred in sheep, cattle and human. These diseases shared the common characteristics that they could result in spongy change in the infected brains and be transmitted from animal to animal, animal to man, man to man and man to animal. The infectious agent of these diseases was not clear until a certain protein - prion protein was discovered. The unstable prion protein molecules can change their shape in a way which renders them indigestible. The indigestible molecules can further turn their digestible sisters into indigestible form. As a result, the protein can convert its healthy relations into the indigestible state which explains how the condition can be transmitted from one brain to another.

The rest chapters of the book are written in a similar pattern, starting with a story of brain disorder and then introducing the related brain constitution. The further explanations of both aspects are mixed and move forward one by one to help reader easily link them together. The more you read the book, the more you will find that the development of neuroscience or the study of our brain is always promoted by recognizing, identifying, understanding and trying to cope with new brain disorders.

At the end of the book, the author provides a list of sources and suggestions for further readings, which could be useful for those readers who want to learn more about the history of exploring and understanding our brain as well as important literatures and case study reports related to specific disorders.

Overall, it is a great book providing enough information that I was seeking for. Since my work is related to brain-computer interfacing, the fundamental knowledge about brain structure and function as well as some related brain diseases is very interesting and useful to me. These would help me have basic knowledge in understanding my work from a neurological point view.

I would like to recommend this book to readers who have certain level (probably high school level) biology background and want to have a brief overview of our brain and its disorders, such as CJD, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, dementia and so on. It also could be a good out-of-class book for college students in neuroscience or neural engineering program.

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In this compelling book, neurologist Adam Zeman tells the stories of patients with a variety of neurological disorders, some familiar (epilepsy, chronic fatigue, stroke, memory loss) and others relatively mysterious (narcolepsy, chronic déjà vu, compulsive fidgeting, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). Chapter by chapter, the author reveals the various levels of the brain, from the atom to the mind, and explores what happens when workings at each level go awry. Zeman requires of his readers no special knowledge of medicine or science, yet he takes us to the very frontiers of current scientific knowledge and elucidates the workings of the brain in astonishing detail.

The book weaves together fascinating case histories, clear accounts of concepts and discoveries in neuroscience, and an intimate view of the suspense, excitement, fun, and angst that color a neurologist?s days. Zeman also considers what the brain?s behavior and misbehavior can tell us about the human self as physical system, living creature, and conscious mind. In a final chapter he reflects on the place of the mind in nature. On every page Zeman both entertains and informs, and readers will find themselves pondering the enigmas of brain and mind long after closing the covers of this thought-provoking volume.

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