Copyright Copyright © 2018 by Alan Jasanoff Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com Thank you for your support of the author’s rights Basic Books Hachette Book Group 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104 www.basicbooks.com First Edition: March 2018 Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc The Basic Books name and logo is a trademark of the Hachette Book Group The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher Unless otherwise noted, images in this book are public domain Every effort has been made to determine the rights holders for the photographs and excerpts that appear in this book Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jasanoff, Alan, author Title: The biological mind : how brain, body, and environment collaborate to make us who we are / Alan Jasanoff Description: New York : Basic Books, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references and index Identifiers: LCCN 2017052705 (print) | LCCN 2017055145 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541644311 (ebook) | ISBN 9780465052684 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Neurosciences | Psychophysiology | BISAC: SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Neuroscience | PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology | MEDICAL / Neuroscience Classification: LCC RC321 (ebook) | LCC RC321 J37 2018 (print) | DDC 612.8/233—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052705 ISBNs: 978-0-465-05268-4 (hardcover); 978-1-5416-4431-1 (ebook) E3-20180129-JV-NF CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication INTRODUCTION part I THE CEREBRAL MYSTIQUE one EATING THE BRAIN two HUMOR ME three IT’S COMPLICATED four SCANNING FOR GODOT five THINKING, OUTSIDE THE BOX six NO BRAIN IS AN ISLAND part II THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING BIOLOGICAL seven INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS eight BEYOND THE BROKEN BRAIN nine NEUROTECHNOLOGY UNBOUND ten WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE IN A VAT Acknowledgments About the Author Notes Index to Luba and Nina, who make me who I am INTRODUCTION WHAT MAKES YOU YOU? Wherever you come from and whatever you believe about yourself, chances are that to some extent you know your brain is the heart of the matter Although it is said that there are no atheists in foxholes, there are also few people who will not duck when the shooting starts—nobody wants a bullet in their brain If you trip and fall forward on a concrete sidewalk, your arms rise instinctively to protect your head If you are a cyclist, the only protective gear you probably wear is your helmet You know something important is under there, and you will what it takes to keep it safe Your concern for your brain probably does not end there If you are smart or successful, you pride yourself on your brainpower If you are an athlete, you prize your coordination and stamina, likewise products (at least in part) of your brain If you are a parent, you worry about your child’s brain health, development, and training If you are a grandparent, you may worry about your own aging brain and the consequences of brain atrophy If you had to swap body parts with someone else, your brain would probably be the last part you would consider exchanging You identify with your brain How complete should this identification be? Is it possible that everything truly significant about you is in your brain—that in effect, you are your brain? A famous philosophical thought experiment asks you to consider just this possibility In the experiment, you imagine that an evil genius has secretly removed the brain from your body and placed it in a vat of chemicals that keeps it alive The brain’s loose ends are connected to a computer that simulates your experiences as if everything were normal Although this scenario seems like nothing more than science fiction, serious scholars use it to consider the possibility that the things you perceive may not in fact represent an objective reality outside your brain Regardless of the outcome, the premise of the thought experiment itself is that being a brain in a vat violates no physical principles and that it is at least theoretically conceivable If scientific advances eventually made it possible to maintain your disembodied brain, the scenario implies that the irreducible you would indeed be in there For some, the idea that people can be reduced to their brains sounds a powerful call to action A young woman named Kim Suozzi heard that call At just twenty-three years old, Suozzi was dying of cancer, but she refused to go gentle into that good night She and her boyfriend decided to raise $80,000 in order to fund the preservation of her brain after she died Suozzi believed that technology might one day enable her to be brought back to life, either physically or digitally, through structural analysis of her frozen organ Science is nowhere near up to the task right now, but that did not deter her To Suozzi in her final days, the brain became everything Others have taken Suozzi’s path as well I myself have had a related experience, which I will describe later in this book When we are confronted with mounting evidence that the brain is central to all we once associated with our selves, our spirits, and our souls, it is not surprising that some of us react dramatically In our brave new neuroscientifically informed world, the brain bears the legacy of several millennia of existential angst Our ultimate hopes and fears can come to revolve around this organ, and in it we may seek answers to eternal questions about life and death, virtue and sin, justice and punishment There is no mental function for which researchers have not succeeded in finding corresponding activity patterns in the brain, using either imaging techniques in people or more invasive measurements in animals We see brain data increasingly entering courtrooms, the risk of brain injury newly affecting our pastimes, and brain-targeted medicines prescribed to alter a gamut of behavior from school performance to social graces A lesson from the legendary Greek philosopher Hippocrates is penetrating the public consciousness: “Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations.” Everything important about us seems to boil down to our brains This is a stark claim, and my aim in this book is to show that it sends us in the wrong direction, by masking the true nature of our biological minds I argue that the perception that the brain is all that matters arises from a false idealization of this organ and its singular significance—a phenomenon I call the cerebral mystique This mystique protects age-old conceptions about the differences between mind and body, free will, and the nature of human individuality It is expressed in multiple forms, ranging from ubiquitous depictions of supernatural, ultrasophisticated brains in fiction and media to more sober scientifically supported conceptions of cognitive function that emphasize inorganic qualities or confine mental processes within neural structures Idealization of the brain infects laypeople and scientists alike (including myself), and it is compatible with both spiritual and materialist worldviews A positive consequence of the cerebral mystique is that exalting the brain can help drive public interest in neurobiological research, a tremendous and worthy goal On the other hand, the apotheosis of the brain ironically obscures consequences of the most fundamental discovery of neuroscience: that our minds are biologically based, rooted in banal physiological processes, and subject to all the laws of nature By mythologizing the brain, we divorce it from the body and the environment, and we lose sight of the interdependent nature of our world These are the problems I want to address In the first part of this book, I will describe the cerebral mystique as it exists today I will this by considering themes in today’s neuroscience and its public interpretation that underemphasize the brain’s organic, integrated characteristics I argue that these themes promote a brain-body distinction that recapitulates the well-known mind-body dualism that dominated Western philosophy and religion for hundreds of years By perceiving virtual barriers between our brains and our bodies—and by extension between our brains and the rest of the world—we see people as more independent and selfmotivated than they truly are, and we minimize the connections that bind us to each other and to the environment around us The disconnected brain acts as a stand-in for the ethereal soul, inspiring people like Kim Suozzi to preserve their brains upon death in the hope of attaining a form of immortality In upholding the brain-body distinction, the cerebral mystique also contributes to chauvinistic attitudes about our brains, minds, and selves, such as the egotism of successful leaders and professionals and the “us versus them” attitudes of war and politics In the individual chapters of Part 1, I will introduce five specific themes that give rise to the brainbody distinction and that tend to elevate the brain above the rest of the natural realm By scrolling through alternative, scientifically grounded perspectives, I will try to bring the brain back down to earth The first theme I will address is abstraction, a tendency for people to view the brain as an abiotic machine based on fundamentally different principles from other living entities This is best exemplified by the familiar analogy of the brain to a computer, a solid-state device that can be perfected and propagated in ways that evoke a disembodied spirit The second theme is complexification, a vision of the brain as so vastly complicated as to defy analysis or understanding The inscrutably complex brain is a convenient hiding place for mental capabilities we want to possess but cannot explain, like free will The third theme is compartmentalization, a view that stresses the localization of cognitive functions without offering deeper explanations Supported largely by the kinds of brain imaging studies we often see in the media, the compartmentalized view often facilitates shallow interpretations of how the brain helps us think and act The fourth theme is bodily isolation, a tendency to see the brain as piloting the body on its own, with minimal influence from biological processes outside the skull The fifth and final theme is autonomy, the view of the brain as self-governing, receptive to the environment but always in control These last two themes allow us to see ourselves as cut off from impersonal driving forces both inside and outside our bodies that nevertheless dramatically affect our behavior I n Part 2, I will explain why a more biologically realistic view of our brains and minds is important, and how it could improve our world I consider three areas that today are heavily influenced by the cerebral mystique: psychology, medicine, and technology In psychology, the mystique fosters a view that the brain is the prime mover of our thoughts and actions As we seek to understand human conduct, we often think first of brain-related causes and pay less attention to factors outside the head This leads us to overemphasize the role of individuals and underemphasize the role of contexts in a range of cultural phenomena, from criminal justice to creative innovation An updated view that moves beyond idealizations must accept that the body’s physiological milieu, encompassing but not bounded by the brain, provides an unequivocal meeting point for influences both internal and external to every person Our brains seen in this way are complex relay points for innumerable inputs, rather than command centers endowed with true self-determination Whenever I have an idea, my idea is the product of all of these inputs converging at once around my head, rather than mine alone When I steal or kill, whatever happens in my criminal brain is the product of my physiology and environment, my history, and my society, including you In medicine, a grave consequence of the cerebral mystique is to perpetuate the stigma of psychiatric disease Accepting that our minds have a physical basis relieves us of the traditional tendency to view mental illnesses as moral failings, but recasting psychiatric conditions as brain disorders can be almost as damning to the patients affected Society tends to view “broken brains” as less curable than moral flaws, and people thought to have problems with their brains can be subject to greater suspicion as a result Equating mental disorders with brain dysfunction also skews the treatments people seek, leading to greater reliance on medications and less interest in behavioral interventions such as talk therapy And seeing mental illnesses purely as brain diseases overlooks an even deeper issue—the fact that mental pathologies themselves are often subjectively defined and culturally relative We cannot properly grapple with these complexities if we reduce problems of the mind to problems of the brain alone For some people, the cerebral mystique inspires technological visions for the future Many of these revolve around science fiction and the idea of “hacking the brain” to improve intelligence or even eventually upload our minds and preserve them for eternity But the reality of brain hacking is less glamorous than its image Invasive brain procedures have historically incurred high risk of injury and helped only the most debilitated patients The neurotechnological innovations that meet society’s needs might best remain outside our heads; indeed, such peripheral tech is already turning us into transhumans armed with portable and wearable electronics Both hopes and fears about neurotechnology are distorted by artificial distinctions between improvements that work directly and those that work indirectly on our central nervous systems By demystifying the brain we will be better able to enhance our lives while solving the scientific and ethical challenges that arise along the way Before getting into my argument, I want to say a few words about what this book does not try to First, it does not explain how the brain works Unlike many other authors, I am concerned more with what the brain is than what it does Although several of my chapters include examples of specific brain mechanisms, my purpose in introducing them is largely to illustrate modes of action that depart from widespread stereotypes about the brain Just as many artists strive to give emotional and psychological depth to flat figures from history and legend, I hope in a humble way to add dimensionality and nuance to an organ that popular writing often depicts as a dry computing machine rather than a thing of flesh and blood Second, this book does not challenge the fact that the brain is essential to human behavior Functions of the mind all require the brain, even if they not reduce to the brain Many of these functions are almost as poorly understood now as they were fifty or a hundred years ago, and basic neuroscientific explorations of phenomena such as memory, perception, language, and consciousness are the best way to advance our knowledge I will illustrate how traditional ways of looking at the brain can be complemented by alternative and broadened views, but neuroscience and the brain remain at the center of the picture Third and most important, this book in no way aims to reject objective neurobiological findings The perspectives I offer will foster a view of our minds and selves as more interconnected than Old Age culture traditionally views them, but this is no invitation to slip into ungrounded New Age spirituality It is hard scientific research itself that paints a picture of the brain as biologically grounded and integrated into our bodies and environments Conversely, it is the cerebral mystique and its emphasis on the extraordinary features of brains that drive people to doubt the power of science to illuminate human thought and behavior—a view that I, like most neuroscientists, emphatically reject The cerebral mystique limits the impact of neuroscience in society today by presenting the brain as a self-contained embodiment of the mind or soul This view makes it easier to “black-box” the nervous system, to treat what happens in the brain as confined to the brain, and to ignore what neuroscience might have to say about real-world problems This is a view I mean to set aside, and I hope that this book will convince you to agree part I THE CEREBRAL MYSTIQUE enzymes, 43, 78 epilepsy, 32, 59, 82, 202 equality, 214–215, 217, 218, 219, 220 Esfandiary, Fereidoun M., 207 essentialism, 150 See also neuroessentialism eugenics, 150, 159 evolution, 13, 60, 61, 62, 68, 84, 134, 165, 205, 210 exercise, 108–109 exoskeletons, powered, 213–214 face and vase illusion, 48(fig.) face perception, 87, 89, 134, 137 Farah, Martha, 74, 75 Faris, Robert, 183–185 fecal transplants, 112 Felker, Bradford, 97 feminine mystique, 24 Ferriss, Tim, 216 Feynman, Richard, 64 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), 78 Fleck, Ludwik, 181 fMRI See functional magnetic resonance imaging FM-2030, 207, 208 Food and Drug Administration, 216 Fore people, 15 Foucault, Michel, 172 Fowler, Orson and Lorenzo, 18, 85 free will, 3, 4, 37, 52, 85, 89, 91, 139 Freud, Sigmund, 25, 38, 152 Friedan, Betty, 24 frontal cortex, 124, 126, 201 Fuchs, Konrad, 19 Fukuyama, Francis, 214–215, 216 functional hyperemia, 43 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 72–77, 83, 84, 85, 90, 167, 168 analyzing data from, 81, 125 first published study, 79 limitations of, 80–81 See also brain scans GABA, 192 Gage, Phineas, 113 Gajdusek, Carleton, 15 Galen, 27–29, 30 Galilei, Galileo, 53, 54 Gall, Franz, 17, 18, 82–83, 168 Gallant, Jack, 80 Gallardo-Pujol, David, 168 Gallistel, Randy, 36 Galton, Sir Francis, 150 ganglion cells, 121, 122, 129 Gauss, Carl, 19, 105 Gazzaniga, Michael, 139 general paresis, 180–181, 191, 194 genes, 55, 65, 181, 182, 183, 189 Genesis (biblical), 117 Gestalt school, 152 Gibson, James, 107 glial cells, 27, 41(fig.), 41–47, 48, 63 gliotransmitters, 45 influencing behavior, 43–44 glioblastoma multiforme, 42 glossolalia, 76 glucose, 78 glutamate, 46 Gödel, Escher, Bach (Hofstadter), 47–48 God/gods, 14, 15, 22, 37, 117, 197, 209, 210, 219 Godwinson, Harold (King), 97 Goffman, Ken, 219 Goldberger, Joseph, 180 Golgi, Camillo, 54 Golonka, Sabrina, 105 Gorbaneyskaya, Natalya, 187–188 Greeks (ancient), 53, 219 Greely, Henry, 217 Greene, Joshua, 169 Grolier publishing company, 154 Gropius, Walter, 155 gut microbiome, 112–113 Hacker, Peter, 93 hacking, 123, 199–200, 219 See also biohackers; under brains “Hacking the Brain” (Konnikova), 199 Haggard, Patrick, 118 Haldane, J B S., 210 Hallervorden, Julius, 177 Handford, Martin, 134 Hannaford, Alex, 162 Harvard Brain Bank (Belmont, Massachusetts), 19 Hawass, Zahi, 96 Haxby, James, 86 Hayworth, Ken, 95 heart/vascular system, 28, 111, 130 Hegel, G W F., 145 Helfer, Bartosz, 194 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 147 Herculano-Houzel, Suzana, 54, 55 heritability, 182, 183 Hinduism, 53, 121 hippocampus, 32(fig.), 109, 202 Hippocrates, 3, 28, 92 history, Great Man theory of, 169 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (film), 31 Hochberg, Leigh, 203 Hofstadter, Douglas, 47–48 Holmes, James, 174–175 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 176 hominins, 13, 14 Hook, Cayce, 74, 75 hormones, 16, 64, 99, 129, 165 Hounsfield, Godfrey, 77 H+ video series, 207 Hsiang, Solomon, 127 Human Brain Project, 64 human nature, 17, 73, 91, 143, 158, 170 essentialist view of, 150 humors, 40 hunger, 16–17, 128, 231 Hutchinson, Cathy, 201(fig.), 203, 213 hypothalamus, 16, 161 hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), 99(fig.), 99–101, 109 Imagine (Lehrer), 85 immortality, 206, 207, 208, 209, 230 implants, 213 See also brains: brain implants individuality, 3, 52, 150, 235 information theory, 35, 36 innovation, 5, 6, 69, 167, 203 Insel, Thomas, 195 Institution for Creation Research, 52 insular cortex, 85 intelligence, 58, 60, 62, 63, 152, 159 enhancing, 199, 206–207, 214–215 intelligence tests, 150 internet, 67–68, 195, 196, 210 introspection, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 iPhones, 85, 200 I, Robot (Asimov), 31 Istvan, Zoltan, 205, 206 James, William, 101, 133, 146(fig.), 147, 148–149, 150, 156, 159, 169 Jesus, 39, 60 Johnson, Cheryl, 110 Johnson, Mark, 107 Jung, Carl, 23, 152 Kahneman, Daniel, 104 Kaku, Michio, 204 Kalistratova, Sofia, 187 Kandel, Eric, 92, 171 Kanwisher, Nancy, 82, 84 Keith, Arthur, 30 Kennedy, Ted, 42 Keramidas, Natacha, 17 kidneys, 64, 111 King, Adam, 36 kissing, 132 Klunk, William, 78 Koch, Christof, 51 Konnikova, Maria, 168, 199 Kreibig, Sylvia, 101 Kreutzer, Hans-Joachim, 97 Kristof, Nicholas, 217 Kuhn, Thomas, 209 Kurzweil, Raymond, 203–204, 207 Lake Victoria (Kenya), 13 Lakoff, George, 105, 107 language, 6, 82, 83–84, 107, 108 language organ in brain, 158 responses to, 137 Lapouge, Georges Vacher de, 68 laughing sickness (kuru), 15 Lauterbur, Paul, 79 learning, neural basis of, 35 Leary, Timothy, 92 Leborgne, Louis, 82 Le Corbusier, 155 LeDoux, Joseph, 104, 161 Lehrer, Jonah, 85 Leucht, Stefan, 194 Levergne, Gary, 161 Lewy, Alfred, 128 Libet, Benjamin, 118 life expectancy, 165 light, 128–129 Lilienfeld, Scott, 72, 166, 193 Lindenbaum, Shirley, 15 Lindstrom, Martin, 85 livers, 57, 111 Logothetis, Nikos, 89 London Telegraph, 110 loom metaphor, 30 love, 85, 101, 102, 111 Lozano, Andres, 199 Lunts, Daniil, 187, 188, 189 McCabe, David, 73, 74 McGurk effect, 132 machine learning, 35, 36 mad cow disease, 15, 16 Madness and Civilization (Foucault), 172 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 43, 71, 79 See also functional magnetic resonance imaging magnetoencephalography (MEG), 80, 125 malaria, 96 Marr, David, 159 marriage/divorce, 138, 185 Marx, Karl, 145, 146 Mashford, Kevin, 110 mathematics, 105 Matsui, Ko, 43–44 medicine/medical research, 5, 20 Medina, John, 135 meditation, 75 medulla oblongata, 23 Mehrabian, Albert, 130 Meister, Markus, 122 melatonin, 129 membrane potential, 32 memory, 6, 36, 59, 93, 111, 158, 202, 215, 218, 234 short-term visual memory, 131 Mennell, Stephen, 16 Mental Disorders in Urban Areas (Faris and Dunham), 186 mental illness, 5–6, 161, 171–196 biomedical/biopsychosocial models concerning, 192 environmental/cultural contributions to, 173, 183, 185, 189, 195 internal/external influences on, 181, 182 medications for, 175 multifactorial causation of, 186 myth of, 191 psychosocial model concerning, 192, 194, 195 stigma concerning, 175–176, 195 mentalism, 152, 157 Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson), 107 methylphenidate, 215 mice, 57, 112–113, 128, 190 See also under brains microbiome-gut-brain axis, 113 microscopes, 53, 89 Midgley, Mary, 164 Miles, Lynden, 108 Milgram, Stanley, 168–169 Milky Way, 53, 54 Miller, Ron, 130 mind, 5, 6, 12, 14, 16, 49, 52, 76, 94, 143 cognitive decline and exercise, 108–109 (see also cognition) as completely material, 74–75 as information-processing device, 159 mind-body dualism, 3, 22, 38, 39, 73, 87, 92, 149 mind-computer analogy, 30 (see also brains: computer-brain analogy) mind-posture relationship, 108 Plato’s analogy for, 29–30, 121 See also introspection; mental illness MIN/MAX device, 154 Minnesota Starvation Experiment, 17 MIT hackers, 200 mitochondria, 56 Molaison, Henry, 202 Moniz, António Egas monkeys, 120–121 See also under brains Moore’s Law, 20 morality, 164, 168–169, 191–192, 195 Morton, Samuel George, 68 Mosso, Angelo, 43 MRI See magnetic resonance imaging multiple sclerosis, 42 Münsterberg, Hugo, 150 Murray, Robin, 52 music, 132 mysticism, 52, 76 mystiques, 24–25, 68 See also cerebral mystique narcotics, 46, 165–166 National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 172 National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), 166 National Institutes of Health (NIH), 20, 128 natural selection, 63 Nature magazine, 217 Neanderthals, 68 Nedergaard, Maiken, 44 Negroponte, Nicholas, 207 nematode worms, 47, 65 Neolithic Revolution, 68 nephrons, 64 neuroelectricity, 29, 31, 41, 45, 48 neuroessentialism, 159–160, 162, 163, 164, 168, 170, 173 neuroexceptionalism, 68 neuroimaging See brain scans; individual methods neuromodulators, 44, 46, 56 neurons, 20, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46–47, 48, 92 action potential (spikes) of, 33, 35, 36, 121–122 degeneration of, 180 dendrites/axons, 54, 56 formation of new, 109 nucleus of, 54–56 numbers of, 54, 60, 61, 63 presynaptic/postsynaptic, 33 (see also synapses) soma of, 53 virtual, 64 neuroprotective agents, 191 neuroscience, 21–22, 43, 48, 57, 71, 91, 170, 171, 186, 193 big neuroscience, 65 convergence with psychology, 158 fundamental lesson of, 220, 234 in Nazi era Germany, 177, 178 and voluntary action, 118 neurotechnology, 197–220 peripheral, 213–214, 217 neurotheology, 75–76 See also spirituality neurotransmitters, 33, 42, 45, 46, 56, 134, 192, 215 neurotrophic factors, 109 Newberg, Andrew, 76 New Guinea, 69 New Phrenology, The (Uttal), 87 New York Times, 85, 188 Nicholas II (Czar), 97 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 92 Nobel Prize, 15, 71, 167 Ig Nobel prize, 81 nootropic substances, 215–216 norepinephrine, 134 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, 79 Nummenmaa, Lauri, 101 Núñez, Rafael, 105 Obama, Barack, 144 obesity, 73, 74(fig.), 111–112 obsessive compulsive disorder, 202 occipital lobe, 123 O’Donnell, John, 146 O’Donovan, Michael, 182 offal, 16 Ogawa, Seiji, 79 olfactory system, 122, 123 omic scale data, 65 On the Freedom of the Will (Schopenhauer), 120 Opezzo, Marily, 109 optogenetic stimulation, 43, 114 Oremus, Will, 110 organelles, 55 organ of Corti, 122 Orientalism, 24 Paganini, Niccolò, 104–105, 109 pancreas, 64 Parfit, Derek, 93 Parkinson’s disease, 202 parrots, 60–61 Pascual, Leo, 168 Pavlov, Ivan, 133, 152–153 pellagra, 180–181, 194 Penrose, Roger, 37, 39 Pepperberg, Irene, 60 perception, 6, 12, 33, 59, 132, 156 personal identity, 93 personality changes, 111–112, 113 PET See positron emission tomography Phelps, Michael, 78 Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Hacker and Bennett), 93 Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein), 93 phosphenes, 212 phrenology, 17–18, 83, 84 physicalists, 74–75 Picasso, Pablo, 23 pineal gland, 129 Pinel, Philippe, 172, 179 Pinker, Steven, 158 pituitary gland, 99(fig.), 99 placenta, 100 Plath, Sylvia, 186 Plato, 29–30, 121 Pleasonton, Augustus, 129, 131 plethysmograph, 43 Poldrack, Russell, 84 political issues, 143–144, 146, 188 positron emission tomography (PET), 43, 78–79, 83, 85 posole, 14 posture, 108 poverty, 166, 231 Prabhakar, Arati, 204 prefrontal cortex, 73, 103, 165 prefrontal lobotomy, 200–202 pregnancy, 100–101 primary visual cortex, 123 Principles of Psychology (James), 149 problem solving, 85, 103, 111, 158 Prometheus, 219 Prosser, Aaron, 194 prosthetics, 201(fig.), 205, 212–213, 231 Proust, Marcel, 135 psychiatric incarceration, 187–188 psychiatric patients/treatment, 97, 192 Psychological Review, 151 psychology, 5, 20–21, 145–146 convergence with neuroscience, 158 experimental, 147–148 first university psychology departments, 149 and synthesis of internal/external views of behavior, 146 “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” (Watson), 151 psychotherapy, 192, 193 Purkinje cells, 53–54 Purkyně, Jan, 53 pyramidal tracts, 123 Pythagoreans, 16 quantum physics, 37 racetams, 215 racism, 24, 68 radiotracers, 78 Raichle, Mark, 124, 126 Ravindran, Shruti, 138 reading, 131, 148, 210 Reagan, Ronald, 144 redundancy, 59 relationships, interpersonal, 137 religion, 4, 38, 39, 76, 117 See also bible; God/gods; souls; spirituality research laboratory notebooks, 173–174 retinas, 45, 121, 122, 129, 212–213 risk-taking, 165 robots/nanobots, 30–31, 106, 203, 207, 210 rodents, 62 See also mice Rodrigues, Paulo, 168 Rosen, Bruce, 72, 79 Rosen, Jeffrey, 162 Rosenthal, Norman, 128 Roskies, Adina, 159 Ryle’s regress, 119 sadness, 101, 102 Sagan, Carl, 54 salient stimuli, 133–134, 135 Samelson, Franz, 152 Sapolsky, Robert, 162 Satel, Sally, 72, 166, 193 Schauss, Alexander, 130 Scheuerrman, Jan, 204, 213 schizophrenia, 171, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 193, 200 diagnosis of, 189 and ethnic minority status, 185 sluggish, 187, 188, 189 and urban environments, 184–185, 194 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 120 Schultz, Laura, 114 Schultz, Wolfram, 35 Schumann, Robert, 96–97 Schrödinger, Erwin, 37, 39 Schwartz, Daniel, 109 science fiction, 6, 30–31 Science magazine, 130 Scientific American, 76, 84 scientific dualism, 38, 39–40, 48, 91, 118, 140, 159 Searle, John, 156 seasonal affective disorder (SAD), 128, 185 self-control, 73, 74(fig.), 128, 138, 162, 165 self-determination, 136 self-worth, 175, 178 selves, 92, 118, 159, 211 sensory system, 121–126, 233 See also auditory system; visual system Serbsky Institute in Russia, 187 serotonin, 129, 175, 192 Seung, Sebastian, 57 Shannon, Claude, 35 Sherrington, Charles, 30 shootings, 174 Shuster, Joe, 198 Siegel, Jerome, 198 Sistine Chapel, 67 skin, 122 Skinner, B F., 146(fig.), 153–154, 155, 156–157, 164, 170 sleep, 129 smartphones, 206, 211–212 Snezhnevsky, Andrei, 187, 188, 189 Sniper in the Tower, A (Levergne), 161 Snowden, Edward, 219 social control, 152 social stimuli, 136, 137, 138 Society for Neuroscience conferences, 20 sociology, Chicago School of, 183 solitary confinement, 137 somatic disorders, 97 somatic markers, 103 souls, 2, 4, 7, 12, 16, 25, 29, 37, 38, 39, 49, 69, 74, 76, 118, 140, 146, 149, 159, 171, 174, 204, 207, 220, 234, 235 South America, 69 Soviet Union, 187–188, 189 speech priming, 137–138 spirituality, 24–25, 36–37, 76 See also neurotheology; religion; souls Spurzheim, Johann, 18 stars, 52–53 Star Trek, 30, 103 sterilization, 176 stimulants, 215 Stoltzfoos, Gerry, 76 stomach surgery, 111–112 Stone Age, 69 Stranger, The (Camus), 126–127 stress, 100, 112, 113, 115, 218 stroke, 40, 42, 203 structuralism, 147, 148, 149, 158 Suetonius, 135 suicides, 172, 219 sulci, 19 Sullivan, Patrick, 182 Sumerians, 211 Suozzi, Kim, 2, 95 Superman, 197–198 suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), 129 Sur, Mriganka, 42 Swartz, Aaron, 219 Sylvia, Claire, 110 synapses, 33, 36 number of, 55, 57 synaptic cross-talk, 46 syphilis/neurosyphilis, 96–97, 180, 181, 191 Szasz, Thomas, 191 tachistoscopes, 147–148 tactile stimuli, 124, 132 Talbot, Margaret, 216 targeted muscle reinnervation, 213 teaching machines, 154 technology, 5, 6, 69, 152, 195, 196, 212 See also Neurotechnology TED lecture series, 199 teenagers, 164–165 telescopes, 53 temperature and behavior, 127–128, 163 temporal lobe, 123–124 Ter-Pogossian, Michel, 78 terrorism, 217 Texas Tower shooting in 1966 (University of Texas), 160–164, 174 thalamus, 123 Titchener, Edward, 148, 149, 152 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 120 Tokyo, 67 transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), 203, 205 transhumanism, 205–214 Transhumanist Wager, The (Istvan), 206 transplants of organs/tissue, 110–111 Tuke, Samuel, 172, 179 Tutankhamen (Pharaoh), 94–95, 95–96 Tversky, Amos, 104 twins, 167, 181–182 unemployment, 185 University of Texas at Austin, 160–161 brains missing from, 162–163 US National Library of Medicine, 20 Uttal, William, 87 Valdesolo, Piercarlo, 196 Valdez, Patricia, 130 values, 143, 182, 208, 218, 220 Vanderwal, Tamara, 125 ventral tegmental area, 35 ventricles of the brain, 29, 41 ventrolateral preoptic area, 114 ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), 103 Verbal Behavior (Skinner), 156–157 Vesalius, Andreas, 29 Victorian era, 178–180 visual system, 121–122, 123, 124, 132, 212–213 mammalian, 34–35 See also retinas vitamin B3, 180 Vita-More, Natasha, 207–208 Voltaire, 52 volume transmission, 46 von Neumann, John, 31, 36–37, 39, 91 Voorhes, Adam, 162 Vul, Ed, 81 Vyasa, 52–53 Wagner, Rudolf, 19 Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 88 Walden Two (Skinner), 155 Wall Street Journal, 92 Ward, Adrian, 196 Washington University in St Louis, 78 Watson, Amy, 176, 195 Watson, John, 146(fig.), 151–152, 153, 155, 164, 170 Watters, Ethan, 189–190 Waugh, Evelyn, 135 Wernicke’s area, 83 Wertheimer, Max, 152 Where’s Waldo? (Handford), 134 Whitaker, Robert, 193 Whitman, Charles, 161, 162, 163, 174 Wiesel, Elie, 186 Wilson, Andrew, 105 Wilson, Robert Anton, 206–207 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 92–93 World War I, 150, 151, 152 World War II, 24 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 155 writing, invention of, 211 Wundt, Wilhelm, 146(fig.), 147–148, 149, 150, 158, 159, 170 X-ray computed tomography (CT), 71, 77–78, 96 Yerkes, Robert, 150, 152, 159 zar, 189 ... brains and the rest of the world? ?we see people as more independent and selfmotivated than they truly are, and we minimize the connections that bind us to each other and to the environment around us. .. stimulus followed by the juice, however, the dopamine neurons eventually began to fire when the stimulus appeared before the juice This showed that these neurons had come to “predict” the juice... minds are biologically based, rooted in banal physiological processes, and subject to all the laws of nature By mythologizing the brain, we divorce it from the body and the environment, and we