The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind

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Summary: An Insightful Mind Explains the Civilized Mind
Review: Dr. Goldberg does a phenomenal job at explaining complex cogntivie neuroscience principals in simple and readily understandable terms. This book is useful for all interested in brain-behavior relationships and a must for neuropsychology students. Even seasoned professionals will find Dr. Goldberg's views refreshing, insightful and intriguing.

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Summary: A new vision for some old problems
Review: Every generation or so rises one with vision who points psychology in a new and fruitful direction. Dr Goldberg's inventive thinking about the brain, about mental illness, attention problems and tourettes to name a few of the areas spanned in The Executive Brain are sure to stimulate research and therapy for years to come. As a bonus, rarely does such a forward looking advance come with such clarity and humanness

Rating:
Summary: A new vision for some old problems
Review: Every generation or so rises one with vision who points psychology in a new and fruitful direction. Dr Goldberg's inventive thinking about the brain, about mental illness, attention problems and tourettes to name a few of the areas spanned in The Executive Brain are sure to stimulate research and therapy for years to come. As a bonus, rarely does such a forward looking advance come with such clarity and humanness

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Summary: Fascinating and Informative
Review: I found the book to be extremely fascinating and informative. It was well written for a comprehensive understanding of the material. Most interesting was the case studies which brought a sense of reality to the scientific nature. The balance between research and personal experience allows for accessibility to a wide range of readers. It is something I will definitely recommend for others to enjoy.

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Summary: Comments on "Executive Brain"
Review: I found this book to be informative and entertaining at the same time, and the language to be higly accesssible . "Executive Brain" is a good textbook supplement but deep enough to stand alone. Good job, EG!!!

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Summary: In appreciation of the frontal lobes
Review: Most of us wander through our days without any conscious thought about the very organ that's directing our routine. But anyone who reads Dr. Goldberg's compelling, lively account of the brain's frontal lobes will come away with a newfound appreciation for their own gray matter. As Goldberg tells it, not only do the frontal lobes help us prioritize tasks and give us our awareness of ourselves and others, they also play a crucial role in creativity and talent, and are the reason they're as civilized as we are. (Next time I see someone toss their trash on the street, I'll think, Weak Frontal Lobes!) Although the book was written with both a general and a scientifically adept readership in mind, it's never so technical that the layperson can't follow the discussion. I found this book stimulating, witty, and illuminating.

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Summary: An Executive Treat!
Review: This book explores not just the frontal lobes but the brain from every angle.....from how we engage in complex mental operations to our social behavior. It's full of the latest discoveries in neuroscience and provides clinical vignettes to illustrate the author's vast experience with patients worldwide. The chapter on Social Maturity, Morality, Law, and the Frontal Lobes is exceptionally well-done and provides a keen insight into the behavior that has captured national headlines in recent times. This book should be required reading for all students of social science. Highly readable for every type of audience. The reader learns something new on each page. Very hard to put down....an excellent read!

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Summary: A few miscellaneous comments
Review: This is an excellent book on the brain focusing on the most advanced area of our brains, the cerebral cortex, specifically, the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes are interesting in that, in contrast to the other parts of the cortex, they play a role in complex and higher aspects of personality and behavior as opposed to language, spatial and mathematical analysis, and abstract thought. Drawing from a variety of sources ranging from current brain theory to neurological case studies, the author shows how the frontal lobes are involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives, from normal social interaction to specific behaviors like long-term achievement motivation (which the infamous lobotomy operation eliminates, rather than having an effect on the person's intelligence, as in the popular misconception) to simple prioritizing of tasks and even anti-social and criminal behavior.

I just have one other comment about this, although not the specific focus of the book, but much of this information has relevance to the classical philosophical issue of the mind-body problem, and I thought I would make a few comments on that.

Although we may not understand consciousness at the neuronal level very well yet, this doesn't mean that someday consciousness won't be completely reduced to a neuronal explanation. Even if complete reductionism is unattainable, it still seems an unavoidable conclusion that consciousness must depend on the brain as a result of studies based on many areas, of which I will only mention one here: those related to the study of brain damage, many examples of which get discussed in this book.

For example, it is easy to demonstrate that as a result of certain degenerative brain diseases and syndromes, neurons in different parts of the brain begin to deteriorate and die off. Eventually, the person becomes extremely impaired intellectually, and ultimately, consciousness itself fades away into nothing.

This progressive deterioration of the mind and consciousness as the brain cells die off, with the degree of impairment being proportional to the degree of brain damage, provides powerful evidence that the brain is behind these phenomena, despite our current inability to arrive at a complete explanation. In fact, it seems impossible to reconcile them in any other way.

If the physiology and anatomy of the brain are not behind the mind and consciousness, then how are the above facts to be explained?"

On the contrary, since without the brain the sense organs cannot function, the body cannot perform its work, and the mind in all of its many aspects, including consciousness, completely disappears, the brain itself has to be the basis for it.

Furthermore, although we can't explain fully how consciousness arises from neuronal mechanisms, this doesn't mean we don't know where it is in the brain. In fact, we can localize it to a particular area. This is the cerebral cortex itself. In Greek, cortex means "bark," or thin layer, and that is exactly what it is. The human cerebral cortex is only a few millimeters thick, but without it, there is no consciousness, no lower or higher mental or cognitive functions, no language capability, and no personality as we know it. Remove this thin sheet of neurons, and what remains in a human being is only very primitive vegetative and physiological functions such as thirst, hunger, fear, and basic motor functions. However, even motor control in a human is irreparably damaged, resulting in a condition known as "decerebrate rigidity," where the skeletal muscles become excessively rigid and inflexible.

Recent research shows that consciousness is the result of processes and mechanisms occurring in diverse and separate parts of the cortex which have to be coordinated in time for consciousness to occur. In other words, there is no one area in the cortex or the brain in which consciousness resides, and it is actually composed of many different components, in contrast to classical philosophical models which saw consciousness as a simple, monolithic, indivisable construct or phenomenon.

Anyway, just a few thoughts on the subject of mind-brain dualism, and why the traditional dichotomy in philosophy is so wrong-headed and false.