In Search Of Memory: The Emergence Of A New Science Of Mind (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
I'm taking a course at Oxford this summer on "The Brain and the Senses." So this is a little extra homework. The idea of memory, where thoughts come from, etc., is fascinating to me. And, many years ago, before I was there, Kandel had his laboratory at the Public Health Research Institute, of which I was later CEO. I'll post more when I get into it.I HAVE NOW COMPLETED BOTH THE COURSE AND KANDEL'S BOOK.BOTH WERE TERRIFIC!The course, offered by Oxford tutor Gillie McNeill, combined descriptions of sensory processes with an explanation of the underlying molecular activity that integrates the incoming perceptions and what's already in memory to create a coherent narrative.We started by eating a cracker and considering what was involved in our individual perceptions of that event ... taste, smell, sight, feel, sound, and memory of crackers and herbs previously ingested. Quite a bit for the first few minutes of the course.Kandel’s book offers enchanting glimpses of his life story, the history of brain psychology and science, and a description of the experiments (of Kandel and others) which are moving our understanding of the brain forward at an incredible pace while also revealing just how little we still know.Kandel’s decision, early in his career, to begin his life’s work with the study of a single cell, set the stage for the way he approached his work. He decided to study the giant marine snail Aplysia as his first means to understand how information was brought into a cell and transferred out to another cell. Learn how that happens, multiply by tens of billions, and you have a working human brain.These quotes may communicate the excitement of Kandel’s journey (which by the way led to a Nobel prize)...“the realization that the workings of the brain - the ability not only to perceive but to think, learn, and store information - may occur through chemical as well as electrical signals expanded the appeal of brain science from anatomists and electro-physiologists to biochemists.”“I was testing the idea that the cellular mechanisms underlying learning and memory are likely to have been conserved through evolution and therefore to be found in simple animals.”“We pointed out the importance of discovering what actually goes on at the level of the synapse (the place where signals are passed from one cell to another) when behavior is modified by learning.”This last quote is almost a synopsis of what the course at the Oxford Experience was about. It turns out that there is considerable growth and change in the brain connections and that this goes on all the time. Your brain has changed since you started reading this review.
Kandel begins and ends his memoir/neuroscience primer with bold declarations of faith, that consciousness itself, as well as (and of perhaps even greater import) the unconscious processes deduced by psychoanalytic investigations, can be accounted for entirely via molecular and cellular activities. The book is therefore a great education and challenge for those who are interested in the problems and possibilities of reductionism. Kandel's work, for which he won a Nobel prize, shows that the simplest forms of learning do have molecular and cellular correlates in simple animals. It seems premature, though, to get excited about reducing higher cognitive abilities to the neural level, and Kandel does acknowledge some major scientific and philosophical problems with reductionism, but mostly he remains optimistic. (Thus I was surprised to read that he once cautioned a colleague [rival?] against pursuing the question of consciousness -- it seems to go against everything he did and all that he explicitly recommends in the final chapter of his book!) Some of the interesting threads Kandel weaves throughout this memoir include his childhood in Nazi Austria and his later, surprisingly recent, efforts to help Austrians acknowledge past atrocities; the brief histories of neuroscience he gives each time he begins describing a new topic of research he pursued; his unapologetic involvement with the biotechnology industry; and the many brief but vivid and gracious portraits he offers of his colleagues. Thankfully, his writing is clear, as well. I would have liked to have learned more about Kandel's own experience with psychoanalysis. This is not a tell-all memoir, nor should it be, but some discussion of his own analysis might have helped the reader understand why Kandel remained allied with the tenets of psychoanalysis long after many reductionists would have discarded them. It might also have helped the reader understand why Kandel made some of the career moves that he made, important moves that seem inexplicable as the book now stands; for example, one professor told him to look to the cell for an understanding of the psyche -- and so he did, for the rest of his life. Without some sharing of his own analysis, Kandel deprives the reader of a clear understanding of why he became a reductionist, really -- other than that he just really enjoyed research, and research implies reductionism. On the other hand, it probably is best that he didn't air his inner dynamics -- and he has plenty to say without all that.
What do You think about In Search Of Memory: The Emergence Of A New Science Of Mind (2006)?
This book is my idea of perfect science writing: Kandel doesn't skimp over the details of his research, and instead dives right in, unlike so many of the science books out there. Parts of this book read like a beefed up text book - I even found myself referring back to some sections of this book while studying for my first set of neuroscience exams.Kandel has a great way of showing how he 'does' science, and what it means to him - in this respect, this book is deeply personal; it does a great job of illustrating the human hearts and minds behind even the most opaque scientific research you might see in the journals. Also, Kandel's blending of his scientific work with his personal history - as well as some Austrian history - is really neat. This book is a strange mix of all kinds of awesome. Not to mention some of the findings in this book are downright astounding; I recall I was sitting on a public bus reading this with my friend sitting next to me, and upon reading a segment in the book devoted to the study of the CREB protein (CREB, a protein involved in long-term memory formation and recall, is basically a prion - a self-propagating/reproducing protein. Prions might be the backbones of long-term memories - this is gnarly as fuck!!), I flipped out, immediately began loudly explaining what I had discovered to my friend, and then everyone on the bus started giving me weird looks and my friend told me to calm down and be quiet. This is the kind of wonder and wisdom contained in this book.Summary: this book is thorough, filled to the brim with personal touches / personality, and an awesome insight into science as a process, or scientific studies in process. If you're thinking of doing any kind of scientific research, I would recommend this book on those grounds alone. Specifically, if you're into neuroscience, this is one of the best books I've read in the field. I loved it. You'll love it.
—Wersly
به خاطر ترجمهاش 4 از 5 میدم در غیر این صورت ریتش 5 هست.
—Fazlollah
A very readable science book for the layperson, explaining the basic neuroscience of memory. The author, a Nobel-prize-winning neuroscientist, weaves three threads together: a memoir about his own life, the history of thought and research on the workings of the brain, and an account of his own research into the biochemistry and physiology of memory formation. It's a tribute to the author's lucidity that I--whose 10th-grade biology class was 40 years ago now--was able to understand a lot of complex, cutting-edge science research. I expected to hit the wall that I always hit in reading an interesting-sounding Scientific American article, where the first paragraph poses a fascinating question, the second paragraph makes me think I'm ever so clever for understanding so much science, and the third paragraph loses me entirely at about the fourth word. But every time Kandel approached what I thought would be that sudden wall in his scientific explanations, he switched neatly back to an episode of his own life, thus leading me through the whole book believing that I was quite clever. Kandel's own early history, leaving Vienna just ahead of complete Nazi takeover, is compelling. He offers lots of insights for outsiders into the scientific research community, and a lot of history of how we came to know what we know about the human brain and consciousness.I read the book on my Kindle and didn't realize there was a helpful glossary until I had finished the book.
—Pat
