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The Idea of the Brain

A History

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The Idea of the Brain

By: Matthew Cobb
Narrated by: Joe Jameson
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About this listen

A monumental, sweeping journey from the ancient roots of neurology to the most astonishing recent research.

This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all?

Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge. Our latest theories allow us to create artificial memories in the brain of a mouse, and to build AI programmes capable of extraordinary cognitive feats. A complete understanding seems within our grasp.

But to make that final breakthrough, we may need a radical new approach. At every step of our quest, Cobb shows that it was new ideas that brought illumination. Where, he asks, might the next one come from? What will it be?

©2020 Matthew Cobb (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Biological Sciences History Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Human Brain Genetics Mental Health

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Profile Image for Patrick GW Smith

Scientific yet philosophical

I loved the tour through of understand of our brains via various lenses, and the open mindedness that we still might have it wrong today. The narration was excellent.

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