The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

READ THIS BOOK if you have children, if you are a children, if you are young, if you are old, if you plan to get older. Seriously, READ THIS BOOK. You will laugh, you will cry, you will probably get really mad. (Or at least really, really disappointed...especially if you're an educator!) Oh yeah, READ THIS BOOK IF YOU'RE AN EDUCATOR. If I could make you read this book...I WOULD. If I could make everyone in the education and/or medical fields read this book...I WOULD. If I could make everyone standing in a field read this book...I WOULD!!! Just read it already...you'll thank me...and probably Dr Doidge...you'll thank him too.

As the title implies, "The Brain That Changes Itself" is an extensive and thoroughly enjoyable look at the history of neural plasticity, albeit from the point of view of a staunch supporter. I found the book to be very well organized, and Doidge's arguments to be very cohesive. The book chapters are filled mostly with stories and case studies regarding a common theme in the study of neural plasticity.Doidge begins by relating the story of Paul Bach-y-Rita's research and efforts to debunk the widely held localizationist theories of the 20th century. He presents some more dramatic case studies such as Cheryl who used her tongue to learn to stand after a debilitating brain injury or Barbara, a seemingly retarded woman, who ended up with advanced degrees and a successful research career (these stories are every bit as interesting as they sound). Doidge relates again and again how massive and usually debilitating brain injuries were overcome by physical and mental therapies.Following his analysis of catastrophic brain injuries and defects, Doidge gives examples of more everyday plasticity. He relates how common disorders such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia can be attributed to (often minor) traumas and incidents during the critical childhood period. He talks about several schools which have had great success rehabilitating victims of those and other disorders through concentrated and prolonged efforts to retrain the brain. He also gives examples of how plasticity can affect even our emotions or sexual tastes.In the final chapters, Doidge relates what he calls the "paradox of plasticity." He explains that, while plasticity can be used to treat crippling injuries, it can also be responsible for equally crippling mental disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder. He explains how rewired neural circuitry can create phantom pain in amputated limbs, reinforce bad habits into addictions, and give rise to compulsive behavior. He further delves into the field of psychoanalysis and reveals the power of thought. He describes many cases where psychoanalysis and new ways of thinking provoke measurable changes in the structure of the brain. He relates one study where a group of people were able to strengthen their finger muscles just by imagining daily finger exercises. As Doidge puts it: "...But now we can see that our "immaterial" thoughts too have a physical signature, and we cannot be so sure that thought won't someday be explained in physical terms. While we have yet to understand exactly how thoughts actually change brain structure, it is now clear that they do, and the firm line Descartes drew between mind and brain is increasingly a dotted line."Finally, for those that make it past the last chapter, the appendices and notes section actually contains a wealth of interesting information. Doidge annotated and explained all of the case studies and references that he uses in the preceding chapters, and included some interesting additional arguments about the nature of culture and its effects on the brain.As with any book that isn't a textbook, "The Brain That Changes Itself" is filled with opinions. Fortunately, many of these opinions are well supported, but readers new to the field could benefit from some time spent in the notes section. Overall the writing style is casual, easy to follow, and very engaging. I particularly enjoyed Doidge's heavy use of case studies to prove his points. Most of the case studies were tremendously interesting, and I regard them as one of the book's best features. I would say that this book is a good read for any audience, but less interesting for those that already have an extensive background in neuroscience. As a final note, I would highly recommend the Kindle version of this book. Unlike some electronic books I have read, the formatting was great, there were no typos, and the book was organized in such a way that I didn't waste time constantly scrolling or flipping pages back and forth.

Anybody interested in the workings of their mind or brain or how we can deal with things like learning disabilities, strokes, dementia or pain, should read this book. In fact, I would say everybody in the world should read this book. I look forward to the day when medicine in general in the world takes all this scientific research into account.

The content of this book was a delight. Very well explained. The author presents a credible and logical development of the story behind localization of function (a somewhat pessimistic and dominating paradigm in education and medicine that has limited our potential for growth and recovery now for decades) versus a solid and fascinating array of evidence for not-so-strict localization supplemented by very substantial plasticity. While the latter is not new, the evidence supporting it has been harder to demonstrate and the hope it offers has unfortunately been deferred.Dr. Doidge's book is a beautiful presentation of the human story behind the scenes -- including that of the researchers who committed their lives to this work as well as of the patients who discovered hope and help through it. No particular science background is required, because he does a wonderful job of explaining just what's needed in lay language. I had a hard time putting it aside even to sleep!!!_________________________________________________Comments specific to the Kindle Edition OnlyMy major reservation and why the book receives 4 rather than 5 stars regards a dilemma with presenting it on Kindle media. Interestingly Dr. Doidge starts to evaluate the role of technology and media in influencing our brain function -- given its ready plasticity. He discussed TV, internet, video games, and the printing press, but unfortunately not Kindle versions of e-books, including his.Itt would be valuable to address what was gained and lost with the Kindle version. Because Kindle is still a relatively new media -- now is the best time to exercise its own plasticity toward better wholeness.Positive sparks for the Kindle: I indeed like the ability to receive the book within minutes of purchase. I like not needing to prop it open on the table in order to keep my place. I like not being tempted to fold over a page edge when the book won't stay propped or needing to scramble for some scrap paper to tear up and insert. It is a relief to be able to add notes which don't clutter up the margins with scribbled lines and highlights.However, some negative Kindling was ignited as well trying to make my way through this book -- particularly over the loss of context and critical visuo-spatial clues. Reading is not a strictly linear activity. There were key features of the global spatial organization that are sadly missing in the Kindle version. Examples:1. There are no clues as to what chapter you are reading once you have dived into one. So if you lay down your Kindle and resume latter...who knows? Many non-fiction books would have a header or footer on every page as a reminder or you can rapidly flip a chunk of pages in a matter of milliseconds to find out. Much more tedious to page backwards or forwards an unknown number of "location blocks" to find out. (Instead of page numbers you are shown locations blocks.) There are several potential solutions -- having a menu item that zooms out to context information like this, or implementing better use of the horizontal position bar at the bottom of the screen so that instead of showing you the percentage of the entire book you have passed through, the bar at least shows where you are with respect to major chapter divisions as a contextual map.2. Finding natural rest breaks is nearly impossible. I like to have an idea how far into a chapter I have progressed, and whether reading just a couple more pages will leave off at a "good stopping point" (i.e. after a good night's sleep). Not possible. The progress marker at the bottom of the text refers to what percent of >7000 locations you have completed -- which refers to the percentage of the whole book. The only thing less useful would be to tell me how many words or characters I've completed out of the whole.3. Use of supplmentary material is very cumbersome. After the first chapter or so, I like to know the scope of the remaining text, how much is really text versus supplements. How good the supplements and illustrations are and how they would be used while reading the text. Yes...I really do want to know what is actually in the appendices so I can see if I will use them as I am reading. Again. Not much to go on here. In this book the appendices do contain several items but these are not cataloged in the table of contents -- its a total mystery box. Once you start into Appendix 1 or Appendix 2 you can't tell what is coming up next or where you are within and between the internal sections. You don't know whether you will miss something valuable or not without going through every single screen. You can't perform a search for something you don't know yet is there.4. The index likewise is not helpful other than to serve as a reminder of key phrases in the book. These do not work as links back to the relevant part of the text. No location or page numbers are shown. No frequency of occurrences is given. Nothing to suggest any relative perspective about where in the book the information occurs.Instead you must type the phrases one at a time into the search box. I do like some features of the the resulting list of occurrences for that word or phrase, the 2-4 line capture of the surrounding sentence(s) and the ability now to link back to the text. However, most of the critical context is still lost. There is no easy way to "zoom out" and see whether the clip you have been transported to is in chapter three, five or chapter nine. You don't know if the topic covers a range of several pages and is a major occurrence or whether it is single line/paragraph hit. You can't tell whether it is before, after or anywhere near the passage where you remember reading about a favorite or related phenomenon. Looking up the related phenomenon next might help; however, it is likewise floating adrift in a contextless sea. I do realize that one can look at the location numbers. But these are so ridiculously large and not subdivided into chapters -- they are relatively meaningless. At least some memory functions work by chunking -- but these chunks need to have meaning!!5. Similar constraints limit the usefulness of the notes section. they are not easily associated with the text to which they refer, nor is it easy to find them chapter by chapter -- only as giant a "clump" at the end.It seems possible that an unfortunate side-effect of engaging in Kindle- reading, until these contextual and spatial clues are restored, would actually interfere with the forms of photographic memory unconsciously employed by most of us and especially by those who have a gift for photographic memory. It becomes nearly impossible to stamp into memory 7000 locations devoid of almost all other landmarks and that change based on text size. A truly functional and fascinating part of our brain function is potentially sacrificed.Thus, I think it would be useful to gather some master publishers of printed works along with Dr. Doidge and the best of these surviving neuroscientists/neuroengineers he interviewed and put them into a think tank project -- these creative minds and Amazon's Kindle developers need to invest a bit more thought into ways to maximize the Kindle interface with: a)this book, and b) the human brain.Surrendering so many visuospatial and organizational cues for contextless leaps between linear text clusters does not seem like a productive tradeoff to me. Neuroscience professionals working out these dilemmas on his intriguing book could solve similar problems for many other books -- the nonfiction and academic books are most in need. Navigating a novel with only a few trail markers may be fine. But not so fine for the less narrative works; its an especially vulnerable way to travel for anything academic.Over time publishers have acquired a great deal of information about the organization and contextual patterns which truly improve understanding, learning, recall and motivation to return to a book for reference purposes. I really don't want to give up this acumulated wisdom. So far computer assisted publishing has added substantial depth to the ordering and visual aspects of the printed page. So...now with the Kindle...let's truly improve rather than just subtract contextual and multisensory clues.I'd rather not rewire my brain backwards toward chaos through my exposure to Kindle books.