If you have not read Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself, I highly recommend that you do. if you are not yet interested in the brain, you will be by the time you have finished this story-filled book.
Even though the book has been out for over a year, it is enjoying much popularity and publicity in Canada right now because of a CBC documentary showing in November and December featuring Doidge. For example, an article "Norman Doidge: re-evaluating the basis of the brain" ran in the National Post. Excerpt:
On Thursday night, on CBC’s The Nature of Things, Canadians will get to see the things that have led me to claim that we are now experiencing the biggest change in our understanding of the brain in 400 years — the discovery that the brain can actually change itself, its very structure and function, with the use of thought. Viewers will watch a blind man sink a basketball; a woman with half a brain functioning in life; learning disorders, strokes and brain traumas improved and cured; and chronic pain alleviated.
For 400 years we have been using the wrong model for thinking about the brain, thinking of it as a machine. Ever since Galileo explained that the planetary orbits could be understood as inanimate objects moved by the mechanical laws of motion, scientists have believed that for an explanation to be scientific it has to be mechanistic, or machine-like.
For 400 years we have been using the wrong model for thinking about the brain, thinking of it as a machine. Ever since Galileo explained that the planetary orbits could be understood as inanimate objects moved by the mechanical laws of motion, scientists have believed that for an explanation to be scientific it has to be mechanistic, or machine-like.
You are in luck! You may watch the documentary here. [Note: This video is currently available only to people in Canada. We are attempting to get broader access.]
H/T: Mindful Hack.
Image credit: CBC.
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