Understanding the Brain

From Cells to Behavior to Cognition

De: John E. Dowling

Narrado por: Mike Chamberlain

An examination of what makes us human and unique among all creatures - our brains

No listener curious about our "little gray cells" will want to pass up Harvard neuroscientist John E. Dowling's brief introduction to the brain. In this up-to-date revision of his 1998 book Creating Mind, Dowling conveys the essence and vitality of the field of neuroscience - examining the progress we've made in understanding how brains work, and shedding light on discoveries having to do with aging, mental illness, and brain health.

The first half of the book provides the nuts-and-bolts necessary for an up-to-date understanding of the brain. Covering the general organization of the brain, early chapters explain how cells communicate with one another to enable us to experience the world. The rest of the book touches on higher-level concepts such as vision, perception, language, memory, emotion, and consciousness. This lucid introduction elegantly reveals the beauty of the organ that makes us uniquely human.

©2018 John E. Dowling (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Great

Love the information in this book. Great detail and outline. I would recommend if you're interested in how the brain works.

Awesome material, terrible audio

The book itself is very interesting, quality writing and well structured. The audio and the narration is terrible, everything is read one-tone only, high pitched and in very poor quality. Audible, I know you can do better.

Exactly what I was looking for!

Highly technical and detailed yet very accessible and enjoyable to listen to. In depth neuroscience presented in an enjoyable and learnable way.

The explanation of how the hormones work in the brain

Using people who are affected with certain defects in the brain and how they are related to the themes.

A thoughtful brain summary

lots of great caae studies to exemplify the brain mechanisms described. Perhaps the part on consciousness could be updated.

Requires at least 1 year of introductory biology courses

People who haven't studied biology before are going to struggle hard with this.

Even me, a biology student on my penultimate year for a bachelor struggle with the, at times, dense writing.

The narration is s bit low quality, both in the literal sense of audio quality, and the narrator who speaks too fast. I almost always listen on 0.9 speed, and even then often go back to relisten and look up terms.

Despite all of this! I enjoyed the challenge in the end, and feel much more confident about neuroscience, including neurochemistry and neuro anatomy. The most difficult chapter was definitely the one about regions in the brain dealing with vision.