What makes us human and unique among all creatures is our brain.
Consciousness, perception, emotion, memory, learning, language, and
intelligence all originate in and depend on the brain. Over the past
century, our understanding of the brain has raced forward to reveal many
of the mechanisms by which the brain creates mind and consciousness. In
this brief introduction to the brain, neuroscientist John Dowling
conveys to the general reader the essence and vitality of the field of
neuroscience-the progress we are making in understanding how brains work
and some of our strategies for studying brain function. Dowling often
relates the exciting discoveries of neuroscience to specific examples of
brain phenomena such as disease, mental illness, aging, or brain injury,
demonstrating how these alterations in brain function cast light on
normalcy and describing some of the therapies enabled by our
understanding of the brain.