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CONNECTOME: HOW THE BRAINS WIRING MAKES US WHO WE ARE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Sebastian Seung | 384 pages | 06 Jun 2013 | Penguin Books Ltd | 9780241951873 | English | London, United Kingdom Connectome: How the Brains Wiring Makes Us Who We are PDF Book Although I did not completely agree with a lot of the author's views towards the end, it really is great thinking and a fairly believable assessment of the future course of society. Now, Seung, along with the help of fellow researchers, is determined to understand more completely the complexities of neuronal connections and their relationship to who we are. It is almost a platitude: your experiences make you what you are, but in this book we have a clear explanation of why and how that works. Format Paperback. Sebastian Seung, a dynamic professor at MIT, is on a quest to discover the biological basis of identity. The book is actually less successful, I think, when it delves into Seung's main interest -- figuring out how to trace the myriad connections of neurons and dendrites and neurites and synapses in the brain. That said, I thought this book had a lot to offer, and it certainly was the most accessible and deepest exploration of this field that I've encountered. Oct 30, Gordon rated it really liked it. The connections, rather than activity. Alma Mater Studiorum — Bologna! Skip to main content. The lucky ones recovered with little or no memory loss, despite the complete inactivity of their neurons while their brains were chilled. But how we define "complexity"? Early chapters are too much a recap of a couple decades of popular science articles and books. The book is brilliant in the way it brings the vastly complex but utterly dead structure of the sliced-up connectome to life in our minds. The whole book was like a meta chapter, with introduction and conclusion chapters that induced hair pulling, and inner content chapters that I loved. Lastly, I gave this a 4 since for me I wish he had ventured much deeper into the scientific details. Seung's unconventional style leads us to the 'Jennifer Aniston neuron' which apparently we all have. Contains great and amusing references to philosophy and history combining science with art. Get a month's unlimited access to THE content online. You really get a sense of the potential regarding this research and what Seung and his colleagues hope to achieve through such discoveries. A time for atlases and atlases for time. Connectome: How the Brains Wiring Makes Us Who We are Writer Readers also enjoyed. And the most acute cases of that are people who have a brain injury or brain disorder and want to change their brain. A thought provoking book worth the resd. While a connection synapse may exist, the connection itself may tell us less than the quality of said connection determined, for instance, by ion channel density near the synapse. Unfortunately, the complexity of the brain's structure and processes are mind-boggling in their complexity. Seung is a good writer, particularly at explaining the basics of neuroscience and helping you understand the history of research that revealed the existence of neurons, the development of brain maps a Sebastian Seung is one of a group of neuroscientists who want to literally unravel the brain's wiring diagram in hopes that it will be the ultimate tool to determine our individual differences and to solve such deep and thorny problems as autism, schizophrenia, depression and other mental disorders. I've been reading a lot of books on the brain and psychology, and compared to those, this one is more about the brain itself- its structure, its neurons, and, above all, its connections. That said, Seung emphasizes that these size correlations only show up for large samples and can't necessarily predict what will happen in any individual's brain. What are we? A connectionist view of the brain is full of revolutionary consequences.! From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Need an account? Seung gives a very clear and well structured overview of his ideas: from the concepts and principles of the connectome paradigm basically the idea that a complete map of neuron wiring would allow us to completely understand the brain to the techniques for constructing such a brain model to some philosophical consequences. Two twins may have identical genomes, but differ from one another in skills and personality and other attributes because their differing env This is a very well-written book about a topic which, alas, I discovered just doesn't do very much for me. Overall, I'm really glad I read it, especially because it was great prep for my job and reassured me that I made the right call and am going to find my work fascinating. Please login or register to read this article. Welcome back. In his focus on advanced imaging techniques and automated image processing, however, he glosses over the potential limitations of the recreation of a connectome. Feb 07, Sheila rated it it was amazing. Seung's writing style is natural if not as crisp as a science journalist, just occasionally veering too folksy for the science with a few awkwardly stilted metaphors. Who are we? Jan 12, Robert rated it really liked it Shelves: science. Migra4on lissencephaly anomaly: microcephaly 3. These are the qualities that make us truly unique. Any Condition Any Condition. An accessible book to introduce and help explain the exciting theory that the mind is entirely encoded in the particular architecture of your brain. Sebastian Seung presents this using everyday language, relating the effects to everyday occurrences and meaning. End Note. Overall, I'm really glad I read it, especially because it was great prep for my job and reassured me that I made the right call and am going to find my work fascinating. Connectome: How the Brains Wiring Makes Us Who We are Reviews Other possible problems may arise from "Faults in synaptic transmission and in processes inside neurons and the glial cells that support them". The structure of our brains? The scales for panels B-M are nm. No ratings or reviews yet No ratings or reviews yet. Connectomes as Constitutively Epistemic Objects: Critical perspectives on modeling in current neuroanatomy. In fact, mapping the connections in a human brain is many, many orders of magnitude more complex given the density of neurons and the intricacy of their connections in brain tissue. Think about that question for a moment Early in the movie which was so improbable it makes Heaven's gate look lucid and budget-friendly , Keanu mutters 'connectomes' during a sequence on brain imaging. The real ground-breaking technologies were various types of stains, such as the Golgi stain. Who are we? Read more Buy It Now. Phantom senses from amputated limbs can be found in this mapping. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. According to the "dual trace" theory of memory, short-term memory can take the form of persistent spiking among a cell assembly, while long- term memories can be stored in persistent connections. It would just be the beginning. Registration is free and only takes a moment. As one grows, the brain's connectome changes through the "four R's": reweighting, reconnection, rewiring, and regeneration. The last two chapters of the book are interesting speculations. Save on Nonfiction Trending price is based on prices over last 90 days. Sebastian Seung takes you by the hand and shows you why. Format Paperback. Other Editions Lia Talozzi — Connectome vs Resolution! Brain regions seem Well written. Or anything else which can't be physically measured. Brain development could not have evolved to depend upon them. Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It's useful to have both types of memory because of a "stability-plasticity dilemma", which is a concept familiar in computers that use both RAM and hard drive storage. Good book with nice historic perspective and brain anatomy. Details if other :. Sadly his medical materialism taints the whole meal. That said, I thought this book had a lot to offer, and it certainly was the most accessible and deepest exploration of this field that I've encountered. Recommended for those who are interested in the mechanisms behind the brain and in the future of neuroscience. The chapters build logically onto one another, from the first introduction of the idea of the connectome to the most ambitious, controversial extrapolations of the idea of the connectome or more generally some set of information about the configuration of the brain giving rise to the self. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. The idea of a connectome- pronounced "connect-tome"- is that technology is reaching the point where we will be able to map out all the connections in the brain, which will help us understand thought, memory, mental disorders, and so on. Seung's unconventional style leads us to the 'Jennifer Aniston neuron' which apparently we all have. The final two chapters examine "cryonics" and "uploading". Sometimes that procedure works. Similar neurons exist for all other specific concepts that we have come to know. We are only just beginning to understand the unfathomable intricacies of the brain, thi What makes us who we are? Feb 07, Sheila rated it it was amazing. On the whole this is an enjoyable book, but from a scientific point of view, it is a bit too 'shallow'. It puts him on par with cosmology's Brian Greene and the late Carl Sagan. First, new slicing techniques are being developed to peel off extremely thin slices of a brain.
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