Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are
Written by Sebastian Seung
Narrated by MacLeod Andrews
4/5
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About this audiobook
We know that each of us is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, our uniqueness resides. Is it in our genes? The structure of our brains? Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our personality. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: how?
Sebastian Seung, a dynamic professor at MIT, is on a quest to discover the biological basis of identity. He believes it lies in the pattern of connections between the brain’s neurons, which change slowly over time as we learn and grow. The connectome, as it’s called, is where our genetic inheritance intersects with our life experience. It’s where nature meets nurture.
Seung introduces us to the dedicated researchers who are mapping the brain’s connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It is a monumental undertaking—the scientific equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—but if they succeed, it could reveal the basis of personality, intelligence, memory, and perhaps even mental disorders. Many scientists speculate that people with anorexia, autism, and schizophrenia are “wired differently,” but nobody knows for sure. The brain’s wiring has never been seen clearly.
In sparklingly clear prose, Seung reveals the amazing technological advances that will soon help us map connectomes. He also examines the evidence that these maps will someday allow humans to “upload” their minds into computers, achieving a kind of immortality.
Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It presents a daring scientific and technological vision for at last understanding what makes us who we are. Welcome to the future of neuroscience.
Sebastian Seung
Sebastian Seung is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Physics at MIT and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has made important advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience. His research has been published in leading scientific journals and also featured in the New York Times, Technology Review, and the Economist.
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Reviews for Connectome
44 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great read about the state of the art in brain research. I also liked that it’s an objective look at the subject and value of the connectome that doesn’t claim to have all the answers but argues well about why we need to go in that direction and what we might find as we do.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An interesting book looking at the latest developments in brain research.
It is kind of a review of previous brain science that has gone before, and looking at the developments in current understanding. Seung's specialism is looking at the connectome, hence the title, which is the whole map of the brain, neuron by neuron, and learning how these interact as a whole.
Whilst they are many years away from a full understanding, they are slowly comprehending the way the chemical and electrical communication make the the brain work.
Some of it was a bit beyond me, and I don't have a background in biology, but is is written in a clear manner for a complicated science book. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guy thinks we should map the entire "connectome" of how all the neurons in a human beings are connected. Fails the seriously address the outrageous expense of such work or how useless the resulting data would be. Still it was a good popular introduction to the current state of neuroscience.