The Tell-Tale Brain - V. S. Ramachandran

* V.S. Ramachandran has exploded the boundaries of modern science - so much so that he has been praised by Richard Dawkins as a latter-day Marco Polo.

*A specialist in brain damage, he is famous for an instinctive, intuitive approach to neurological disordersthat has led him to successfully 'amputate' phantom limbs, as well as solving the riddles of apotemnophilia (an obsession with self-amputation), and Capgrass syndrome (where patients who are in all other respects fully recovered become convinced that their loved ones are imposters).

This new book will explorewhy the human brain is so uniqueandhow it became so enchantingly complex.Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about the brain and how it evolved. Along the way we hearstories that are by turns moving, funny, tragic and disturbing, but always utterly fascinating.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran is Director of the Centre for the Brain at the University of California, San Diego. He has a PhD from Cambridge and many honours and awards including a fellowship from All Souls College, Oxford. He lectures widely on art, visual perception and the brain, gave the 2003 BBC Recith Lectures, and is the author of the critically acclaimedPhantoms in the Brain, which was the basis for a two part series on Channel Four TV. Newsweek recently named him one of the 'hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century.'

"Ramachandran is a latter-day Marco Polo"
RICHARD DAWKINS

"A masterpiece. The best of its kind and beautifully crafted. Alluring storytelling, building to a penetrating understanding of what it is to be uniquely human.Ramachandran is the foremost pioneer-the Galileo-of neurocognition.Mysteries of the mind, like our love of art, are revealed through his ingenious, deceptively simple experiments. Here is thefruit of a long, daring career, peppered with breakthroughs and unforgettable insights."
Allan Snyder, Director, Centre for the Mind

""No one is better than V. S. Ramachandran at combining minute, careful observation with ingenious experiments and bold, adventurous theorizing. THE TELL-TALE BRAIN is Ramachandran at his best,a profoundly intriguing and compelling guide to the intricacies of the human brain.""
Oliver Sacks

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Ramachandran is the modern wizard of neuroscience. In THE TELL-TALE BRAIN, we see the genius at work

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Norman Doidge, MD, author of The Brain That Changes Itself

"Ramachandran has writtenan astonishing book. His humanity, humour and scientific genius inform every passage.The Tell-Tale Brainis a veritableVoyage of the Beaglethrough the terrain of brain science and psychology."
Nicholas Humphrey, author of Seeing Red