FitnessProsBooks.com - The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books)
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List Price: $16.00
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Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.8
EAN: 9780143113102
ISBN: 0143113100
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: 2007-12-18
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Brain That Changes Itself
Comment: Received the book in a timely manner and in perfect condition. Unfortunately, I have not had time to read this book.
Probably shouldn't be reviewing but I want the message out of my email!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Accessible Science
Comment: Dr Doigdge does an amazing job of teaching difficult scientific concepts in a manner that made me want to keep reading because I was understanding it. Who would have thought that a nonfiction book about brain plasticity would become a page turner? I hope he writes another book about the brain. As he points out, we are discovering so much about it and at a fast pace.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The book that changes the brain that reads it
Comment: This book looks like a solid sort of semi academic-y pot-boiler but in fact it is a hugely engaging, eye-popping even,take on how wrong the long held belief of 'localizationism' was (the view that the brain is made up mostly of hard-wired areas fit for only one purpose) for example, claims like, the auditory cortex is only for hearing, the visual cortex is only for seeing and such like.
it turns out that the brain is highly plastic (able to rewire itself over time) given the appropriate stimulus, and when disasters occur in the body or the brain, other parts can be recruited in to do the processing work.
It's a basic truism that we learn far more from failure than success.
Health disasters that befall people can turn out to be very instructive and beneficial for future sufferers.
Even those with very rare conditons can benefit when a seemingly intractable case is handled by an inspired doctor/scientist improvising with unorthodox methods. There is much hope to draw from all this, especially when success is achieved with conditions that the mainstream considers to be irreversible.
Brain plasticity is the coherent theme of the whole book and it is always the focus of every chapter in ever more novel and surprising ways.
I cannot begin to do justice to how Doidge explains this, because he is quite simply brilliant at writing.
Each chapter concentrates on a particular narrative or story of how plastic the brain is, the chapters are like high quality Vanity Fair articles and would even stand on their own, expect that there is a sense of progression in the book and later chapters recapitulate findings from earlier ones.
I have a sense that Doidge (who is a psychiatrist I believe) would have spent an enormous amount of time refining this book as it is beautifully crafted, hearteningly articulate and deserves to win a prestigious prize.
my favourites saying from the book is about how plasticity comes about:
"neurons that fire together wire together"
Read it, you're in for a massive treat.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is an important, groundbreaking and fascinating book. For another, written by another brilliant psychiatrist, I recommend
Comment: That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Rako's book is remarkably candid, insightful, and wonderfully well-written. The writing just flows.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Setting New Goals
Comment: I was impressed by the various examples presented of the plasticity of the brain and realized that this carefully written book would be helpful to anyone challenged by the effects of aging on one's capabilities. I have benefited from Posit Science's Brain Fitness and Cortex Insight programs and this book encouraged me to continue to exercise my brain to enjoy improvement that comes in small steps.
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Editorial Reviews:
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An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed. From stroke patients learning to speak again to the remarkable case of a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, The Brain That Changes Itself will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.
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