He explains how these circuits and structures work, and describes in detail how seemingly small changes can have drastic effects on things most people take for granted, like the ability to feel pain, put together coherent sentences, or even recognize a loved one. Ramachadran takes the reader on a tour of these circuits and the regions of the brain they connect and pass information through. The human brain is made up of circuits, which are in turn made up of cells called neurons. Human brains evolved in small, gradual steps that resulted in astonishing changes.
Humans are unique because of our mental faculties, but these unique mental faculties all result from physical structures that can only have evolved from physical structures that were present in our early ancestors. Much of the information presented in The Tell-Tale Brain can be viewed through the lens of human evolution. At the same time, he ponders questions of morality, human uniqueness and the fine line between what connects us to other animals and what separates us from them. He uses specific case studies to examine basic but poorly understood elements of the human experience like brain plasticity, visual perception, social structures, autism, language, aesthetics and introspection. Ramachandran applies the specific insights gained from the studies of unusual problems to his general knowledge of the human brain to explain in-depth what goes wrong in these cases, and then relates that back to what happens in a normally functioning brain. Often, studying these problems makes it possible to perform a sort of reverse-engineering, allowing researchers to extrapolate information about the general workings of the part of the brain or neural pathway in which a disease or injury has its effect. This includes people who have suffered strokes and recovered most but not all functions, people with phantom limbs or people with synesthesia. Much of the information presented in The Tell-Tale Brain was discovered by scientists who study people with damaged or genetically unique brains. Ramachandran uses his experience in studying these rapid advancements both to present confirmed discoveries and to speculate about where the field might continue to go and what it might find in the future. In his latest book, The Tell-Tail Brain, neuroscientist and author V.S. The field of neuroscience has flourished since the 1990s, presenting us with a world of new information that can help us better understand the nature of the human mind. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Ramachandran, V.S.
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