Brainscapes: The Warped, Wondrous Maps Written in Your Brain-and How They Guide You

Written by Rebecca Schwarzlose

Narrated by Rebecca Schwarzlose

A path-breaking journey into the brain, showing how perception, thought, and action are products of maps etched into your gray matter—and how technology can use them to read your mind.

Your brain is a collection of maps: detailed representations, scrawled across your brain’s surfaces, of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival. Although scientists began discovering these maps over a century ago, we are only now beginning to unlock their secrets—and comprehend their profound impact on our lives. Brain maps distort and shape our experience of the world, support complex thought, and make technology-enabled mind reading a modernday reality. They shine a light on our past and our possible futures. In the process, they invite us to view ourselves from a startling new perspective.

In Brainscapes, Rebecca Schwarzlose combines unforgettable real-life stories, cutting-edge research, and vivid illustrations to reveal brain maps’ surprising lessons about our place in the world—and about the world’s place within us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705030714

Rebecca Schwarzlose

Rebecca Schwarzlose is a neuroscientist at Washington University in Saint Louis. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT and has served as chief editor of the scholarly journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. She lives in Saint Louis.

Reviews for Brainscapes

[steve02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The unfortunately new-age-sounding title is not representative of the solid and interesting and well-written science writing in this book, about how the brain can comprehend and organize spatial and other information, and then use those mechanisms to coordinate things like motion and memory. Good explanations of complex biological brain phenomena without being too complex or talking down to the reader.