Review by New York Times Review
"We all now know about left brain/right brain thinking," laments Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist, referring to the idea that the brain's two hemispheres perform some specialized functions. "We are almost bored with it." But it wasn't always so. In the 1960s, Gazzaniga contributed to riveting work that helped to create this perspective. As a graduate student at Caltech, he studied a patient called W. J., who suffered from severe seizures. As treatment, W. J. underwent a surgical procedure in which the fibers connecting his left and right hemispheres were severed. Researchers at the time did not necessarily expect this condition to cause cognitive change. But as Gazzaniga found, when W. J.'s right hemisphere was presented with an image, his left hemisphere remained in the dark. That is, when a square was flashed in such a way that it was "seen" only by the right side of the brain (and not the left, which for W. J. was responsible for language), W. J. said he saw nothing. "My heart races. I begin to sweat," Gazzaniga recalls. "Have I just seen two brains, that is to say two minds working separately in one head?" For decades, this puzzle consumed him. He and his team conducted hours of testing on split-brain patients to probe whether - or to what extent - the two sides of their brains operated separately when initiating movement, paying attention and solving problems. They also discovered subtle ways in which the hemispheres could aid each other. At the same time, Gazzaniga helped found the field of cognitive neuroscience, which he describes as "the study of how the brain creates the mind." Today, the era of split-brain research has largely waned - in part because patients with severe epilepsy have more and better treatment options than radical surgery. The idea that one skull can house two minds, each with a measure of autonomy, has also given way to the idea that we all have "multiple minds" operating as a "confederation," according to Gazzaniga. How this system creates a seemingly unified mind - "a mind with a personal psychological signature" - remains a compelling question. AMANDA SCHAFFER is a contributing editor at the MIT Technology Review and a former science and medical columnist for Slate.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 5, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Gazzaniga may not be a household name, but he is considered one of the most important neuroscientists of our time. In this fascinating memoir, this pioneer in cognitive research offers a behind-the-scenes examination of the work he and his fellow scientists did to uncover the mysteries of the right and left brain specifically, split-brain research aimed at discovering whether each hemisphere of the brain could learn independently of the other. Gazzaniga is a charmer. Consequently, this is not a dry scientific tome. On the contrary, the personable Gazzaniga his warmth and good humor virtually jump off the page recalls his life as a scientist at Caltech, Dartmouth, Cornell, and other institutions, and the ups and downs that came with it. Some biographical details are surprising. For example, Gazzaniga admits that math doesn't come easy to him and that he usually steers clear of highly technical discussions of almost everything. He is also a bit of a name-dropper. With a foreword by Steven Pinker, Gazzaniga's memoir should delight fans of the television series, The Big Bang Theory, but it will also have tremendous appeal for non-nerds, too.--Sawyers, June Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gazzaniga (Who's in Charge?), who helped develop the left-right theory of the brain, tells a winding tale of a life lived in science and the joys of bringing science to the public. Gazzaniga's work on the "split brain" case studies spanned decades, universities, and medical schools, but as he makes clear, there's much more to a life than the pursuit of science as a career. Outside his research, Gazzaniga kept busy by organizing public debates featuring William F. Buckley Jr. and others, which led Buckley to invite him on Firing Line and to write pieces for National Review, including a spoof of the Pentagon Papers. But the substance of his work with patients is also covered in exhaustive detail that conveys how science is made: "slowly, with lots of people contributing." Less successfully, episodes from Gazzaniga's personal life-marriages, burials, new houses, job searches-are also included. Perhaps these show the contours of an academic life, but they read drily. Gazzaniga's book is of great interest to those embarking on careers in pure research, and to anyone intrigued by the story of one of the greatest discoveries in cognition. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Gazzaniga (psychology, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Who's in Charge?), who heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind and is a leading researcher in cognitive neuroscience, has written numerous books for scientists and laypersons and hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on how the brain works and lateralization of brain functions. This engaging, accessible biography describes not only his research, but his family life as well. It illustrates that work in the laboratory does not occur in a vacuum and that advances in science are sometimes inspired by people working in other fields as well as students and mentors. Gazzaniga speaks with candor about the many scientists he has worked with and how they inspired his research. He also acknowledges the exceptional contributions of the split-brain patients he has been close to for most of his career. It is fascinating to read about the stories going on behind the split-brain experiments that don't make it into the scientific literature. VERDICT Good for readers who enjoy scientific biographies and anyone interested in neuroscience.-Margaret Henderson, Midlothian, VA (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"How on earth does the brain enable mind?" That is the still-to-be-answered question posed by Gazzaniga (Who's in Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, 2011, etc.), the director of the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara.In this scientific memoir, the author chronicles his 50-year career at the forefront of research and "the scientific saga" in which he still plays a part. "I have come to realize the great extent to which my own march through life has been influenced by others," he writes, "and how we scientists are all a composite of both scientific and nonscientific experiences." His own scientific journey began as a graduate student at Caltech, where the hot topic was "split brain research [on animals] which was trying to find out if each hemisphere of the brain could learn independently from the other." His focus became the study of epileptic patients who underwent similar surgery to control intractable seizures, and he describes his stunning realization that his first human subject's "right brain completed an act of which his own left hemisphere had no knowledge." In effect, two separate minds were functioning in the same body. Though they could not communicate directly, over time, they developed indirect ways of cueing each other. Gazzaniga describes how this discovery paved the way for understanding how normal brains use modular processes that work in parallel to process information and come to decisions. The author writes warmly of the people who shared in his discoveries and his many friendships. In a foreword, Steven Pinker pays tribute to Gazzaniga not only for his scientific achievements, "midwifing the field of cognitive neuroscience, butfor showing that science is compatible with all the other good things in life." A lively appreciation of both the complexity of the human mind and the scientific enterprise. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
