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Summary: Not what i expected but wonderful
Review: A book by an award winning graphics artist. i figured it would be a bunch of pictures of the brain with some text. Nope, it's a ton of text with a fair number of pictures (maybe 1 per 2 pages). Wonderful illustrations but it's hardly a picture book.i'm a graduate student who builds software that mimics the human mind. i'm not a neurologist so i can't claim to review this book the way an expert would, nor can i claim to be particularly interested in the neurology and biology. But the information in here, which explains what all these parts do and what the impact is if they get damaged was really useful to be as a computational cognitive modeler. So what do i like about this book? Two things. First, it's pretty comprehensive and integrates the information well. It hits most of the significant parts of the brain and explains the relationships between them. Second, it's really easy to read, which is great when you have readers like me with a minimal background in this stuff. i've since read a lot of books on psychology, cognitive science and neurology. Few are as easy to understand as this one and few put all the information together as this one. Note that this book focuses on functionality and puts relatively less emphasis on mechanism. Yes, synapses, sheathing, neurotransmitters and reuptake are covered, but don't expect in-depth coverage of the role of glial cells or calcium influx. This is not your MCAT study guide and isn't a references for neurosurgeons doing their residency. But it does have some good information for people who work in or near the field and is easy enough and enjoyable enough for anyone of practically any age to read
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Summary: A Novices Review of Neural Substrates for Cognition
Review: Considering my limited background in this field, this book was an excellent overview of all research that tries to associate specific areas of the brain with specific cognitive function, like emotions, memory, conscious and unconcious thought, blind sight, etc. If you're looking for a first book in this field, I'd highly recommend Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter. Even if you have lots of experience in this field, you should pick up this book and see what a good writer can do with a complex subject. This book might also be good as a textbook for a survey course in cognitive science.
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Summary: (insert eye-caching title here)
Review: I bought this book a while ago, thinking it would help me later with studies etc. I picked it up one night and didn't put it down until two hours later, I was enthralled! Never before had the brain so intrigued me. Mapping the Mind has enough of a balance between the scientific jargon and the anecdotes to really inspire the reader. With help from diagrams, this book explains several mental disorders (such as depression, autistic children and the split-brain phenomenon) with the appropriate physiological explanation. My knowledge of not only the physiology of the brain but also other parts of the body was greatly enhanced by this book and it has led me on to read more about the brain and psychology. I realise this review appears to have a litle too many superlatives in it but if anyone else out there has read Rita Carter's Mapping the Mind, I'd be surprised if you didn't agree with me. (oh, and by the way, it managed to arouse this much interest in me and I'm 14)
Happy reading, Katie.
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Summary: Expanding your mind--and loving every minute of it.
Review: I can't recommend this book highly enough. Not only is Carter's writing the clearest, most accessible science writing I've ever encountered, but she occasionally had me laughing out loud. The subject matter is fascinating, and deserves such clear, inviting treatment! After all, we should all be able to understand and enjoy our brains. The essays contributed by leading neuroscientists are far more lucid than their own books, and the plentiful, well-designed visuals are a joy. After all, if you didn't know it already, brain function is complicated and quirky--and understanding it takes more resources than merely words alone can offer.
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Summary: An excellent introduction to current neuropsychology.
Review: I ordered this book without having seen it, intending it as a sort of casual review of current trends in neuropsycholoical knowledge and research- more for casual reading than serious study. I'd taken my last neuro course in grad school nearly 20 years ago, and thought of Carter's book more as casual reading than something for serious study. I was surprised to discover that Carter has written a book that, while an enjoyable read, is one of the best introductory text's I've ever come accross in the field. I showed it to a few academic friends who agreed that yes, this would make a fine adjunct to an introductory cource in neruopsychology or neuroanatomy. Quite an accomplishment. I would strongly recommend this book to both the casual reader with an interest in mind and anatomy, and the serious student looking towards a career in psychology, medicine or neuroanatomy.
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Summary: Great Reference Book, Very Pedagogical
Review: I started my interest in neurobiology in December 1998 after reading a discussion by Rita Carter in the FT showing that rational behavior under uncertainty and rational decision making can come from a defect in the amygdala. Since then I've had five years of reading more technical material (Gazzaniga et al is perhaps the most complete reference on cognitive neuroscience) and thought that I transcended this book.
But it was not so. I picked up this book again last weekend and was both astonished at a) the ease of reading , b) the clarity of the text and c) the breadth of the approach! I was looking for a refresher as I am trying to capture a general idea of the functioning of that black box and found exactly what I needed without the excess burden of prominent textbooks. Very pedagogical.
I read here and there comments by neuroscientists dissing the book over small details perhaps invisible even to experts. I just realize that Carter should keep updating it, as it is invaluable in my suitcase when I travel! I do not conceal my suspicion of "science writers" and journalists more trained in communicating than understanding and usually shallow babblers but Carter is an exception. Perhaps the science of the mind requires breadth of knowledge that she has. She is a thinker in her own right not just a "medical journalist".
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Summary: An Excellent Introduction to the Brain
Review: I'm no expert on introductory neurology texts, but my guess is that Carter's Mapping the Mind is about the best there is. She uses copious diagrams, accounts of pathologies, and essays by well-known experts to describe the various parts of the brain and how particular areas are correlated with specific mental activities. While I don't agree with all of her claims (her treatment of emotion strikes me as little more than a rehash of philosophical behaviorism), this work is both informative and highly accessible to most people. It should be particularly valuable to those interested in psychology, philosophy (especially the philosophy of mind), theology, and of course, brain science. I highly recommend this work.
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Summary: Excellent way to "catch up" on brain research
Review: Rita Carter and Christopher Firth have put their heads together and come up with a very comprehensive yet accessible review of brain research. Carter's style, backed up with Firth's broad and deep knowledge of the field has yielded a most enjoyable and useful book. Having followed many of the individual areas of research in the popular scientific press as they unfolded, I had a patchwork understanding of what has been done in the past ten or so years, especially since MRI and PET scans became common, but I did not have a complete and lucid picture. Carter, with the support of Firth and many distinguished researchers in the field providing Cameo vignettes throughout, succeed in offering the layperson having little more than an interest in the field, an excellent read and a good high level reference source. The overall design and illustrations in the large format softcover edition is very attractive and encourages reading. I highly recommend this to anyone vaguely interested in how the mind works from a neuroelectrochemical perspective as well as from an anecdotal, human perspective. This is not a psychology book nor what I think of as a traditional cognitive science book and is much the better for it.
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Summary: A Truly Outstanding Book
Review: This book allowed me to update my knowledge in neurospychology 10 years after leaving neurosciences studies for engineering.
The illustrations are probably the best in the domain for both their artistic quality and their content. Rita Carter wrote a little masterpiece that I regret not to find when I was a student.
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Summary: Stunning, all neuroscientists should read this.
Review: This is a beautifully written overview of the current thinking in neuroscience. What is stunning about this "everymans overview" is that it presents information that you may not even find in the very latest research. Bearing in mind it was written in 1998 some of the research presented seems to be more advanced than that presented in many current specialist publications and it does so with clarity and simplicity. The problem with the field of neuroscience (and this is true of other scientific fields) is that, to put it in brain disorder language, often quite literally the "right hand does not know what the left hand is doing". What this means is that researchers often have very deep knowledge of specific areas but no overall view of the subject. This is crucial in neuroscience which deals with a highly interconnected system like the brain. It is usual that an overview text on a particular field will be published five years or so behind the current leading research. However this book turns that on its head to some degree because it makes connections between different areas that need to be consistant with one another. I am somewhat baffled as to how an overview can have more information than specialist publications and be published before them. I am a neuroscientist and I just wish I had known about and read this book when it came out, it would have saved me a good deal of time! This is a great read for anyone at any level.
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