Graham J. Desborough

Dr. Graham Desborough, a General Practitioner by trade, has always been fascinated by how the brain thinks. The realm of neuroscience has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years and yet there has been a lack of general consensus on how exactly it is that our brains think, with many scientists and researchers using the same words to explain the topic but with entirely different meanings. In his book How the Brain Thinks Dr. Desborough has brought together the most recent understanding on the subject and provided in easy to understand terminology a fairly complicated subject.

The book is written in a accessible manner for those of us not in the medical/scientific community and includes a glossary of the most commonly used terms with how they're applied in the context of this book. The first half of the book focuses primarily on the functions of the brain using a concept he calls FACE MaP (Frontal cortex, Attention, Emotion, Consciousness, Memory and Perception) and how these all combine to become the thinking brain. The second half of the book is about brain biology, giving a great overview of the physical brain itself and how neural function works.

At just under 300 pages, this book serves as a good introduction to the topics. Each of the FACE MaP concepts themselves are fascinating and I found it quite interesting about how much confusion their still is about how each one works and even on the general terminology in some cases. About the only downside is I did not find the book to be engaging enough to read in one shot, instead read it in small portions spread out over time. Still, it's fascinating stuff and has given me a starting point for further research into the areas I found most interesting.

I won a copy of this book in a GoodReads giveaway.… (meer)