I was really into this study of the brain for the first 2/3, but then started to lose interest. I don't know why, maybe just information overload? It was neat to read about how the brain adapts when a limb or a sense is lost or added, and what sorts of possibilities the future holds.

I was fired up by the rave WSJ review (9-5-20) but reader Sarah points out an egregious error, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...As this is her field, I'm putting my plans to read the book on hold, unless I read something that convinces me otherwise. A serious error by the author. As she points out, how can you trust other 'facts' in the book you don't know as well? And it's not like I don't have hundreds of other books on Mt. TBR.Thanks, Sarah for pointing this out. There's a long discuss...

A fantastic summary of the latest research on neuroplasticity.David not only explains but illustrates in easy-to-understand terms the following:1. Reflect the world. Brains match themselves to their input.2. Wrap around the inputs. Brains leverage whatever information streams in.3. Drive any machinery. Brains learn to control whatever body plan they discover themselves inside of.4. Retain what matters. Brains distribute their resources based on relevance.5. Lock down stable information. Some par...

The most important book I've read this year. Eagleman never fails to amuse and then he makes it all scientific and reasonable which gives it that much more credibility. A game-changer.

You will never think about your brain in the same way again. The brain is often portrayed as an organ with different regions dedicated to specific tasks. But that textbook model is wrong. The brain is a dynamic system, constantly modifying its own circuitry to match the demands of the environment and the body in which it finds itself. If you were to zoom into the living, microscopic cosmos inside the skull, you would witness tentacle-like extensions grasping, bumping, sensing, searching for the

A masterpiece of popular science and one of the most hopeful books I've ever readLet's say there's a kid who has the worst case of epilepsy ever. Like, seizures every 20 minutes. Doctor says the only treatment is a hemispherectomy, which is exactly what it sounds like — removal of half the kid's brain. What do you think happens after the operation? How will the kid do?If you said, "Well, the kid's going to lose his ability to walk, talk, do anything really," you'd be correct — but only for a few...

David Eagleman once again takes the infinitely complex brain and explains it in language that a layperson can understand— and more importantly, enjoy. While I think the uninitiated should start with his older & more fundamental book, Incognito, this new book Livewired is just as fascinating. You’ll learn just how resilient and flexible our brains can be, and how technology is still nowhere close to being as powerful as them. Reading about the brain has given me more empathy and for that reason a...

Edit: I have had a lot of people commenting on this review so please let me clarify what I mean. I found factual inaccuracies in the book that I know to be inaccurate because there were about my own field of expertise. The inaccuracies were referenced but did not match what the reference material stated and I had to go to the reference source to clarify what was actually factually correct. I can not recommend a book that fails to reference correctly.However I read an ARC and errors may be correc...

Popular science book topics are a bit like buses - you wait ages for one on a particular topic/route and then a whole string of the turn up. This is yet another title on the workings of the brain (though to be fair to David Eagleman it was already out in hardback, so he was at the start of the queue). Thankfully, Eagleman gives us a whole new way of looking at the human brain's capabilities, suggesting the reason Homo sapiens is so versatile and capable is down to the extreme plasticity of the h...

Eagleman does it again! This book was such a rewarding experience. The pacing was great, and he didn't get bogged down in the technical details that sometimes make this particular subject matter unapproachable to many. Not only did it have a thorough consolidation of many recent discoveries in neuroscience, but I was pleasantly surprised with a few new hypotheses to which I hadn't yet been exposed.I was very excited when this was released, and it definitely did not disappoint.

Some organisms can thrive in vastly different environments. This book explains how this is possible.Instead of being programmed, or hardwired, to do countless tasks, brains are livewired to take advantage of whatever is available. They learn how to work with peripheral input (sensory) and output (motor) devices by using them and getting feedback. The shape of the devices is irrelevant: what matters are the data. It is possible to see and hear through touch, to see through sound, and so on. As a

"We suggest that dream sleep exists, at least in part, to prevent the other senses from taking over the brain’s visual cortex when it goes unused. Dreams are the counterbalance against too much flexibility."In: https://time.com/5925206/why-do-we-dr...

so so good, blew my mind many times

Just wow. I had no idea that brain - something we take for granted because we do not even notice its work on a daily basis - can do such wonders. Somebody could easily insert most of the brain's accomplishments into a new sci-fi novel, and the majority of readers would assume that it's just a fiction, that we can't achieve this within our current bodies. But we can, and we do. Our whole life is based on those, seemingly magical skills. And this is how we operate every day. I was in a constant st...

Now every time I think about thinking, I think about what a wonderful creature we humans are, and how Mother Nature has wholeheartedly gifted us such an amazing thing as our brain. This compelling demonstration of what our brain is capable of is a must-read!

I’ve enjoyed following David’s projects over the last decade, and as expected, this book did not disappoint. David makes neuroscience not only digestible, but enthralling. He a technical leader in his scientific discipline and a masterful scientific communicator.

A fascinating read! *Full review to be written later*

Reading David's words is always a delight. Well articulated and accessible transfer of knowledgeWould highly recommend all his works no matter the medium as they give us a glimpse into how our minds work. There's no manual for life but out of a collection of books I'd want David's in the repertoire if there were such a tomb.

Excellent book about the plasticity of the brain -- about how every experience we have changes the brain, and about how the brain maximizes it resources to interpret the data coming in from our senses. Deals also with the problem of memory (storage of all the data), among other issues. Eagleman is a neuroscientists who is doing research in the field, but he is great at explaining things in common terms we can all understand. I have read a few of his other books and have liked them all. While the...

If you're interested in new research on brain science, this is the work for you. It's easy for non-scientists to read while still offering fascinating insights about how our brains work.