A Portrait of the Brain

A Portrait of the Brain

The human brain—with 100 billion cells and as many as 1 trillion interconnections—is the most complex system we know. Here to shed light on many of its mysteries is Adam Zeman. In A Portrait of the Brain, he tells the stories of patients with a variety of neurological disorders, ranging from epilepsy and chronic fatigue to narcolepsy and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. Along the way, he leads a tour of the various levels of the brain, from atom to synapse to neural network to consciousness, and explores what happens when workings at each level go awry.

In one chapter, for example, we meet Charley, whose childhood inability to sit still blossomed into a curious set of symptoms in adulthood: persistent twitching and fidgeting, restlessness, a mania for collecting odds and ends. A neurological examination confirmed that Charley had chorea triggered by McLeod’s syndrome. As with a related malady—the better-known Huntington’s chorea—this ailment involves a degeneration of the basal ganglia, a group of cell clusters deep in the brain that help organize our movements.

We go on to encounter Pete, whose intense and irrational feelings of fear were eventually traced to variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. This, as we learn, is triggered (as is scrapie, kuru, and “mad cow” disease) by mutated proteins known as prions, and is a rapidly progressing dementia associated with widespread signs of disturbance in the brain. Here as well is the story of Jan, whose gradually worsening memory and loss of language ability was compensated by a sudden flowering of interest in painting. Jan turned out to have damage to his left temporal lobe—and Zeman links this deficit to Jan’s symptoms. In the book’s final pages, the author turns away from specific brain functions to ponder how the self emerges from it all.

A Portrait of the Brain offers an informative snapshot of the most mysterious part of our bodies.

Hardcover: 256 pages

Publisher: Yale University Press ( April 28, 2008 )

Item #: 43-3743

ISBN: 9780300114164

Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 9.3 x 0.0 inches

Product Weight: 22.0 ounces