Synaptic Self How Our Brains Become Who We Are

by LeDoux, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780670030286
• ISBN10: 0670030287
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-14
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

Ranging widely through philosophy, literature, and the history of science, LeDoux examines how we have conceptualized the relationship between brain and self through the centuries. His own contribution, based on two decades of research, begins with the startlingly simple premise that the self-the essence of who a person is-intricately reflects patterns of interconnectivity between neurons in the brain. Synapses, the spaces between neurons, are not only the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and remember, but also the means by which we encode our most fundamental traits, preferences, and beliefs, allowing us to function as a single, integrated individual-a synaptic self. As LeDoux brilliantly argues, a synaptic self does not exclude other ways of understanding existence-spiritual, aesthetic, moral-but rather it enriches and broadens these avenues by providing a neurological/psychological construct grounded in the latest research in biology. Rather than join the age-old debate on whether nature or nurture is more determinative, LeDoux posits that both genes and experience contribute to synaptic connectivity. Mind expanding in every sense of the word, Synaptic Selfrepresents an important breakthrough in one of the last frontiers of medical research.

Author Biography

Joseph LeDoux, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University's Center for Neural Sciences, is the author of The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life and the co-author with Michael Gazzaniga of The Integrated Mind.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
The Big One	1	(12)
Seeking the Self	13	(20)
The Most Unaccountable of Machinery	33	(32)
Building the Brain	65	(32)
Adventures in Time	97	(37)
Small Change	134	(40)
The Mental Trilogy	174	(26)
The Emotional Brain Revisited	200	(35)
The Lost World	235	(25)
Synaptic Sickness	260	(41)
Who are You?	301	(24)
Notes	325	(34)
Works Cited	359	(34)
Index	393