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Rating: 
Summary: A bit unfocused
Review: "The more we feel, the less we are, literally, ourselves - the less encumbered we are by previous, idiosyncratic associations the personalize the brain into the mind"This is the authors proposal, and she uses the examples of the child, the junkie, the depressive to show how this theory plays out in actual experience. She equates emotions with nature, living in the moment and lower brain structures and equates thoughts with nurture, reflection and the prefrontal cortex. This dichotomy seems spot on in some of her examples and I could see some parallels to my own life. However, sometimes I couldn't understand her at all, I have no doubt that what she was trying to say made sense to her but to me it seemed like unfocused wandering. I prefer a more structured book
Rating:
Summary: A bit unfocused
Review: "The more we feel, the less we are, literally, ourselves - the less encumbered we are by previous, idiosyncratic associations the personalize the brain into the mind" This is the authors proposal, and she uses the examples of the child, the junkie, the depressive to show how this theory plays out in actual experience. She equates emotions with nature, living in the moment and lower brain structures and equates thoughts with nurture, reflection and the prefrontal cortex. This dichotomy seems spot on in some of her examples and I could see some parallels to my own life. However, sometimes I couldn't understand her at all, I have no doubt that what she was trying to say made sense to her but to me it seemed like unfocused wandering. I prefer a more structured book
Rating: 
Summary: Frustrating
Review: All the author did was to put together a long string of Names and refefences. I wish I could remember anything from the book, but no, not even the sentence that was repeated about 1000 times...
Rating: 
Summary: Excessive neurobabble
Review: I found this book surprisingly disappointing due to a severe lack of supporting evidence. For example, her primary thesis--that consciousness is a function of large neural networks--is spelled out in only the vaguest of terms. Her discussion of associated phenomena is similarly superficial...e.g. "It is possible that the core problem underlying manic depression is again one of inappropriately sized neuronal networks." (p. 127) What is an "inappropriately sized" network? This is never defined. Are any studies cited of neuronal networks in manic depression? No, at least so far as I could tell. This problem of inadequate analysis holds for many statements in the book. A second example, picked at random..."According to the brain model of emotion that I am suggesting pleasure is associated with unusually modest associations between neurons. (p. 129)" What on earth does this mean? What neurons are we talking about? Where? How are you defining their association--electrophysiologically, by functional brain studies? This is never discussed. Second, some of her ideas--such as trying to equate schizophrenia with dream states--are not adequately supported in her book and certainly not in the psychiatric literature. A while back books with excessive and poorly defined psychological topics were dismissed with the epithet of "psychobabble"...this book, I'm afraid, comes dangerously close to "neurobabble." Neuronal networks in relationship to consciousness are MUCH more intelligently and thoroughly discussed in Edelman and Tononi's recent (2000)book "A Universe of Consciousnes." Damasio's 1999 book, "The Feeling of What Happens," represents the neurological approach to the problem of understanding consciousness and gives a much richer perspective than Dr. Greenfield's attempt. It is my opinion that time is much better spent reading either of these two books.
Rating:
Summary: Vauge.
Review: Like some other reviewers, I found Greenfields main thesis quite vauge. Sure, consciousness depends on a large, transient collection of neurons, and sure, neuron assemblies depend on neuromodulation, force of stimulus, connectiveness, and sure, the body and the mind communicate through peptides. But all that is very general picture of the neurology of consciousness, like an aereal picture of a city. How can one,from such a model,go into any details (or discriminate in the aerial picture people,interactions between rooms or traffic). There is not much in Greenfields model that sheds any light on the "hard problem" either.
At the end, what is truly the best aspect of the book is the introduction and discussion of current theories, and the fact, stated by Greenfield herself, that at least she produces a testable hypothesis, and grounds her work in uncontroversial neurology. (the epilouge is quite intriguing too).
Rating: 
Summary: Complex but interesting.
Review: The Private Life of the Brain by Susan Greenfield is a very complex work on consciousness and theory of self. Trained in the field of neuropharmacology and physiology with degrees from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, United Kingdom, the College de France, Paris, and NYU Medical Center, New York, the author has held lecture posts at several of the world's prestigious universities including Lincoln College, Oxford, the Institute of Neuroscience, La Jolla, California, and Queens University, Belfast. In 1998 she became the first female director of Britain's Royal Institution. Her current research is in the causes of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. With this vita she is eminently equipped to discuss the topic. Although the book seems to be a bit rambling, this is because it covers a lot of territory-but then there is a lot of territory to cover: brain anatomy-physiology, chemistry, neuro-connections, diseases, emotions, consciousness and the emergent self. Probably because she is a pharmacologist and physiologist and most especially a scientist, she approaches her subject by dividing it into aspects that illuminate these characteristics and give rise to testable hypotheses regarding the inner workings of the brain and mind. The chapter headings are therefore: 1) The Idea (the problem of consciousness), 2) The Story So Far (a history of the theories of mind), 3) The Child (early consciousness), 4) The Junkie (pain, euphoria, neuro-effective and neurophysiological chemicals), 5) The Nightmare (loss of consciousness), 6) The Depressive (highs and lows of consciousness), 7) The Human Condition (emotions and a theory of consciousness), 8) The Answer (the wrap up). Certainly much of the material, especially in the first two chapters, is a recap of the work of others. This is the usual approach to a topic about which one wishes to introduce new information; first you inform your reader of what has been done and by whom and how it fits with what you are yourself doing. Much of this may be new to those who have not studied anything about mind-brain research, but for those who have the names will be familiar: Edelman, Aleksander, Chalmers, Crick and Koch, Calvin, and Dennett, among others. In line with this style of authorship, most of the bibliography Greenfield cites is in the form of articles in prestigious professional journals from the 1980s to the 1990s (the book was published in 2000). One finds here periodicals like Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Neurology, Journal of Cell Science, etc. Most of these entries will probably not interest any but the professional in the field. Fortunately the author has done most of the work herself and puts the research into understandable perspective for the amateur. For myself, I found some of the information very interesting, even useful in my profession. I had heard of and even seen ecupuncture use to control some types of pain, but had felt that it was all a placebo effect. Professor Greenfield pointed out, however, that research on the topic reveals that naloxone (Narcan) can reverse the effects of ecupuncture just as it can the effects of narcotic analgesics. Since I've given naloxone to over narcotized patients (it's preferable to waking them up and asking them to "breathe") I have seen its effects. The knowledge that it is effective in reversing ecupuncture suggests that while the effect of ecupuncture might be "in the mind" it is also legitimate and physiological. I also found the information on brain physiology/chemistry in analgesia and anesthesia informative, since I work in Recovery Room and ICU nursing where I see the effects of these drugs are often very individual. As to the topics of mind, consciousness and self I would say that the author's thesis is far more convincing than any other I've read so far, if for no other reason than that she offers substantial physiological and chemical proof in favor of it and that it gives rise to testable hypotheses. As she writes: "The key concepts arising from this book are as follows: (1) emotion is the most basic form of consciousness; (2) minds develop as brains do-both as a species and as an individual starts to escape genetic programming in favor of personal experience-based learning; (3) the more you have of (1) at any moment, then the less you have of (2), and vice versa. The more the mind predominates over raw emotion, the deeper the consciousness (pp. 181-182)." A very informative if somewhat complex book.
Rating:
Summary: Complex but interesting.
Review: The Private Life of the Brain by Susan Greenfield is a very complex work on consciousness and theory of self. Trained in the field of neuropharmacology and physiology with degrees from St. Hilda's College, Oxford, United Kingdom, the College de France, Paris, and NYU Medical Center, New York, the author has held lecture posts at several of the world's prestigious universities including Lincoln College, Oxford, the Institute of Neuroscience, La Jolla, California, and Queens University, Belfast. In 1998 she became the first female director of Britain's Royal Institution. Her current research is in the causes of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. With this vita she is eminently equipped to discuss the topic. Although the book seems to be a bit rambling, this is because it covers a lot of territory-but then there is a lot of territory to cover: brain anatomy-physiology, chemistry, neuro-connections, diseases, emotions, consciousness and the emergent self. Probably because she is a pharmacologist and physiologist and most especially a scientist, she approaches her subject by dividing it into aspects that illuminate these characteristics and give rise to testable hypotheses regarding the inner workings of the brain and mind. The chapter headings are therefore: 1) The Idea (the problem of consciousness), 2) The Story So Far (a history of the theories of mind), 3) The Child (early consciousness), 4) The Junkie (pain, euphoria, neuro-effective and neurophysiological chemicals), 5) The Nightmare (loss of consciousness), 6) The Depressive (highs and lows of consciousness), 7) The Human Condition (emotions and a theory of consciousness), 8) The Answer (the wrap up). Certainly much of the material, especially in the first two chapters, is a recap of the work of others. This is the usual approach to a topic about which one wishes to introduce new information; first you inform your reader of what has been done and by whom and how it fits with what you are yourself doing. Much of this may be new to those who have not studied anything about mind-brain research, but for those who have the names will be familiar: Edelman, Aleksander, Chalmers, Crick and Koch, Calvin, and Dennett, among others. In line with this style of authorship, most of the bibliography Greenfield cites is in the form of articles in prestigious professional journals from the 1980s to the 1990s (the book was published in 2000). One finds here periodicals like Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Neurology, Journal of Cell Science, etc. Most of these entries will probably not interest any but the professional in the field. Fortunately the author has done most of the work herself and puts the research into understandable perspective for the amateur. For myself, I found some of the information very interesting, even useful in my profession. I had heard of and even seen ecupuncture use to control some types of pain, but had felt that it was all a placebo effect. Professor Greenfield pointed out, however, that research on the topic reveals that naloxone (Narcan) can reverse the effects of ecupuncture just as it can the effects of narcotic analgesics. Since I've given naloxone to over narcotized patients (it's preferable to waking them up and asking them to "breathe") I have seen its effects. The knowledge that it is effective in reversing ecupuncture suggests that while the effect of ecupuncture might be "in the mind" it is also legitimate and physiological. I also found the information on brain physiology/chemistry in analgesia and anesthesia informative, since I work in Recovery Room and ICU nursing where I see the effects of these drugs are often very individual. As to the topics of mind, consciousness and self I would say that the author's thesis is far more convincing than any other I've read so far, if for no other reason than that she offers substantial physiological and chemical proof in favor of it and that it gives rise to testable hypotheses. As she writes: "The key concepts arising from this book are as follows: (1) emotion is the most basic form of consciousness; (2) minds develop as brains do-both as a species and as an individual starts to escape genetic programming in favor of personal experience-based learning; (3) the more you have of (1) at any moment, then the less you have of (2), and vice versa. The more the mind predominates over raw emotion, the deeper the consciousness (pp. 181-182)." A very informative if somewhat complex book.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating
Review: There is no "gene for", no "brain region for",
and no "transmitter chemical for" a particular human
behaviour or cognitive function. I.e. we will
not be able to express a sophisticated brain function
in terms of one feature alone,
Susan Greenfield tells us.
Rather, genes, chemicals and brain regions work
together in a complex and highly intricate
way to produce a behaviour.
So, the book offers no swift catchphrases,
as those so often seen on TV, e.g.: "The chemical
dopamine is a molecule for pleasure,
all human activity therefore evolves around obtaining
higher dopamine levels in the brain". Instead, Susan Greenfield offers a thorough (and,
must be said, sometimes complex bordering
something almost selfcontradictory)
neuroscientific explanation of mental states,
the effect of drugs, how emotion will ebb and flow in
inverse relation to selfconsciousness etc. I was particular pleased with the chapter on the
effects of drugs in the brain.
Here I really felt I learned something
about what is really going on inside
a brain under the influence of drugs.
Which also gives an inside into the workings
of a normal brain.
However I wasn't completely swayed by her
explanations concerning consciousness I.e.:
Emotions are found to be "the most basic form
of consciousness" Greenfield states,
but how does that help us to know what consciousness IS?
The book could have digged deeper here.
Still, it is highly recommended. -Simon
Rating:
Summary: There's more to the brain than the mind
Review: This is a must for those wanting to add an up-to-date and readable book containing `mind' or `brain' in the title to their collection. Greenfield argues for consciousness to be more than mind, and proposes that we look to our emotional life for clues as to its emergence and continuity. In a crude nutshell, we are asked to believe that "the interaction between body and brain IS consciousness" and that whereas the mind needs the brain (alone ?), consciousness requires the neuronal brain plus its modulatory interaction with the hormonal system(s) of the body as a whole. (i.e., the brain is necessary, but not sufficient to produce consciousness). In a little more detail, although this volume provides the reader with an attempt to distinguish mind from consciousness, we are at the same time given a model continuum with `emotion' at one end and `mind' at the other; the goal of neuroscience (of whatever flavour its researcher) being to uncover the `Rosetta Stone' of the physical brain Vs emotion/consciousness. Starting with the thesis that emotions are suppressed by logic and reason, we are taken on a tour of metaphysical models of mind-brain coexistence and a useful series of historical analogies of self-hood persistence are drawn from the literature. What an agent does (behaviourally) is rightly in my view distinguished from what it might think or understand (concerning its situation), but Greenfield pushes for the further dependence upon consciousness to underly true understanding. What of consciousness itself, here as elswhere in the book, there is little new. The middle chapters concerning specific brain regions, their known behavioural correlates, and their modulation by the use of both clinical and street drugs are well written in a style accessible to the general reader, but perhaps cloud the formation of the `bigger picture'. However, such might be beyond the remit of this volume, requiring a different vocabulary and indeed a couple more chapters. The standard amine neurotransitter stories are appropriately given, but I am left wondering whether we have really come thereby to know how (as opposed to that) "feelings influence thoughts" before before turning to how "thoughts influence feelings" ? (concluding Ch.6). Discusing the ways in which thoughts and words might give rise to our emotional sensations is `difficult' because we are unclear as to `the physical stimuli and triggers [which] impinge upon the senses' - but this begs the question as if other behaviours such as sensorymotor transformations are already understood. Even if emotions are found to be "the most basic form of consciousness" as Greenfield contends, I'm not convinced that such a view helps me to know what consciousness IS (either for myself or another). Indeed, I'm rather afraid that this might result in the term dissappearing following the phenomenon being explained away [cf the illiminative materialism of Churchland]. It is only in the latter two chapters that Greenfield comes clean, adding the effects of the (traditionally separated) endocrine system in progressing our understanding of consciousness (as opposed to merely describing the brain-mind). Keeping the two systems apart, Greenfield introduces peptides as "vying between the brain and the rest of the body", affecting neuronal assemblies (as they do) and thus the extent, type and degree of consciousness experienced. This is all intuitively plausible, but no clear mechanisms are offerred here. I felt that the warrant for a further chapter had been given and wanted to know Greenfield's view as to how this might come together re the mind-brain correlates already `in-the-bag' with regards neural plasticity in growth and development. I was expecting to go on to read, for example, how circulating hormones were involved in quite different time-courses of events (as the appendix discussed fast quantum theoretical proposition effects dismissively in contrast to the millisecond events occuring at the synapse) but there was no mention of the mush (significantly) longer min/hour/daylong effects of hormonal releases in contrast to synaptic (electrical and chemical) transmission. Furthermore, no mention was made of work [e.g., Dixson (Camb) and Tom Insel (Emory)] currently attempting to determine the effects of hormonal regulation upon gene expression and its effects upon the developing nervous system (both postnatally and in utero). Such an inclusion would have provided for me a more rounded closure.Maybe in adulthood more rationality does appear to be correlated with decreased emotionality - instant by instant - but in that case, how does one get `high' on one's own intellectualism ? And, somewhat tongue in cheek, might plants with auxin circulation (a botanical equivalent of an animal hormone) have consciousness but no mind ?
Rating:
Summary: Elegant theory, excellent writing, but a bit vague
Review: This is excellent science writing. Many complex ideas are made understandable through clear analogies, while clearly pointing out the limitations of those analogies. The author tries to describe how brain states relate to states of experience; by finding common ground between many extreme experiences. Her elegant (if not original) thesis is that patterns of connectivity between massive numbers of neurons determine our overall state of consciousness. States vary, according to this theory, by how large the interconnected clusters of neurons are, and how rapidly they turnover from one cluster to another. Neuroses and depression reflect a kind of stuckness in wide scale static networks of associations. States of intense sensation all involve "losing our mind" in the sense of dismantling these widespread networks and replacing them with many small networks that rapidly switch from one to another, keeping us trapped in the here and now. We peer into the life of drug addicts, the fearful, the schizophrenic, and small children, to find some remarkable similarities in their experience. Then we see how the experience is so different for the depressed and those in pain. By comparing these extremes, and comparing the extremes to the way we normally feel, the authors' thesis begins to come to life. This is a fascinating attempt at a framework for relating brain states and states of consciousness that has a lot of potential, but is clearly still a skeleton. It does, however, make a number of testable predictions discussed in the final chapters, which distinguish this book still further from the usual speculations about how the brain produces conscious experience. On the other hand, in some ways, there is more missing than presented here. The theory of neural connectivity is very vague and makes no inroads to explaining just why a complex neural network should produce a mind. The implication is almost that arbitrary complexity should suffice, but this clearly isn't the case. Sensory networks seem to possess qualities of experience, while motor networks do not. There is something more in the networks that give rise to higher mental qualities than just complexity itself, and the author is very vague in this critical area.
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