Featured in Episode 32 of the Brain Science Podcast at http://brainsciencepodcast.com

---

Product Description

In his latest book, David Bainbridge combines an otherworldly journey through the central nervous system with an accessible and entertaining account of how the brain's anatomy has often misled anatomists about its function. Bainbridge uses the structure of the brain to set his book apart from the many volumes that focus on brain function. He shows that for hundreds of years, natural philosophers have been interested in the gray matter inside our skulls, but all they had to go on was its structure. Almost every knob, protrusion, canal, and crease was named before anyone had an inkling of what it did--a kind of biological terra incognita with many weird and wonderful names: the zonules of Zinn, the obex ("the most Scrabble-friendly word in all of neuroanatomy"), the aqueduct of Sylvius, the tract of Goll.

This uniquely accessible approach lays out what is known about the brain (its structure), what we can hope to know (its function), and what we may never know (its evolution). Along the way Bainbridge tells lots of wonderful stories about the "two pounds of blancmange" within our skulls, and tells them all with wit and style.

(20080101)

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99753 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this geographical tour of the nervous system, readers will find an entertaining and enlightening history of neuroscience and a look at the anatomy of the brain. A clinical anatomist at Cambridge University, Bainbridge (The X in Sex) has had ample opportunity to examine the brain and ponder its origins and function—as well as the many strange and marvelous names of its parts, labeled long before anyone knew what they did. The Zonules of Zinn—a name from an ancient map, from a souk, from another galaxy—are small fibers attached to the lens of the eye that adjust it for seeing at different distances. Bainbridge discusses the history and function of each name: in addition to hillocks and pyramids are the Almonds (amygdalae), part of the emotional response system, and the locus coeruleus, or sky-blue place, involved in alertness and stress. Your brain even has its own Area 51, thanks to a German neuroanatomist whose system of numbering different regions of the cerebral cortex is still used today. Bainbridge's tour also includes short discussions of nervous system disorders like multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. The book's relaxed pace, interesting tangents and broad coverage make this book eminently suitable for anyone curious about the brain. 30 b&w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
In this "geographical tour" of the nervous system, readers will find an entertaining and enlightening history of neuroscience and a look at the anatomy of the brain...The book's relaxed pace, interesting tangents and broad coverage make this book eminently suitable for anyone curious about the brain. (Publishers Weekly 20080405)

[A] wonderful exploration of the brain and central nervous system...Writing in prose that is precise, descriptive, and engaging, [Bainbridge] offers vibrant depictions of neuroscientists' discoveries and the brain's evolution. Moving from structure and evolution to the senses, engineering, and wiring of the brain, the author eloquently describes the functioning of the central nervous system and then briefly examines the connections between the brain and the mind, along with more esoteric functions such as memory and consciousness.
--Candice Kai (Library Journal (starred review) 20080417)

Absorbing...[Bainbridge's] witty journey from spinal cord through brain stem to cerebral cortex, ending with a cautious chapter on the "deceitful spectre" of consciousness, is unashamedly personal...Despite the complexity of the human brain, Bainbridge seeks to convince the non-specialist that it is, in fact, "simpler than you might have thought."...Highly informative and historically minded.
--Andrew Robinson (The Lancet 20080701)

This book does an excellent job of introducing the layout of the brain in an easily digestible form through describing the history of its discovery while celebrating quirkiness in its nomenclature and the eccentricities of early anatomists...This book is enjoyable to read and provides an excellent contribution to making some of the apparently bizarre structure and functioning of the brain accessible to the lay reader. All neuroscientists should also welcome it: as a teacher of neuroanatomy for many years I certainly read it with pleasure.
--M. W. Brown (Times Higher Education Supplement 20090101)

David Bainbridge is establishing a reputation for clear, popular science writing, laced with imaginative flair and good humor, plus the essential skill of good storytelling. It is a reputation this book is likely to enhance...Presented as a journey through the "geography" of brain and nervous system, the book introduces its lay readers to a phantasmagoria of exotically named parts, from the Tolkienesque tract of Goll to the canal of Schlemm, Varolio's bridge and a host more.
--Rob Parkinson (Human Givens Journal )

With great good humor, anatomist Bainbridge conducts a tour up the spinal cord to the cerebral cortex, en route covering, in succession, embryonic brain development, the structuring of the senses, and the workings of the mind. A tour de force of popular science writing. (Booklist )

About the Author
David Bainbridge is University Clinical Veterinary Anatomist at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. Catharine's College.

---

Customer Reviews

wonderfully accessible
A wonderfully accessible book of brain function and structure. I have no idea how "accurate" it is from a scientific perspective, but I found it easy to follow and fun to read. Bainbridge appears to put forward the accepted current "knowledge" of the brain while simultaneously raising some of the more contested questions for readers to ponder. He briefly addresses the contentious issue of consciousness, in a very measured way, providing seven potential explanations.
The book proceeds through a "geographical" tour of the brain on the premise that the brain's function can be (somewhat)explained by where in the brain the particular anatomical feature is. He starts with the brainstem and moves forward to culminate with the cortex. While he suggests that location can help us understand function, he carefully points out where this theory does not hold up.
If I understand his "conclusions" accurately, current brain research suggests that it is the pattern of connections in the brain (and more specifically the association cortex) that determines how the brain functions. So, while some of the simplistic views we've all been taught about right and left brain differences and lower and higher order brain functioning is (somewhat) valid, but ultimately the brain is much more complex than that.
What I would have really liked is a metaphor that could capture this perspective. My memory isn't that good. Bainbridge does touch on memory and emotion, but as any good scientist probably would do, he does not draw many conclusions in this area because of how difficult it is to "know" exactly what's going on in these areas.

Irresistible
When I came across 'Beyond the Zonules of Zinn' by David Bainbridge, memories of Harlan Ellison's SF story 'Adrift Off the Islets of Langerhans' had me searching for more details. Now, as most of you likely know, the Islets of Langerhans are where the hormone producing cells of the pancreas are grouped. The details of the Bainbridge book indicated that the Zonules, like the Islets, were an anatomical structure, but that the book was, unlike the Islets, fact not fiction and dealt with the central nervous system and the brain. It was structured as a trip - an exceedingly fantastic voyage - up the spinal cord and into the brain, discussing the extraordinary features which occur seemingly at every millimeter along the way.
Now I am not only an SF fan (so that the very title of Bainbridge's book made purchasing it inescapable) but I occasionally - well, actually, only too frequently - buy books based on their cover, and this cover pledged a journey into surrealistic realms. Snakes, booze, Odalisques (that is, sex), food, flowers, music...all seemed inevitable companions on the pilgrimage. But, yet again, I find books about the structure and the working of the brain and the mind virtually irresistible, and have done so since my first year at university, 54 years ago, when I discovered the Medical Library (yes, I'm really that old a fart). I had to buy the book. And I am penning this short article because it not only lived up to expectations, but surpassed them in terms of wit, humour, graceful writing, and, above all, interest and knowledge. I urge all who are inquisitive readers, to buy the book.
For those, who like me on reading the words Zonules of Zinn, want to know just what they are, it is that they are features of the eye. The lens of the eye is focussed by a muscular ciliary which acts to flatten the lens by connections between the muscle and the lens. These connections are the `many minuscule fibers...tiny tendrils, the most delicate part of the brain' called the Zonules of Zinn. And if you're worried about that last statement - `the most delicate parts of the brain' being within the eye - well, that's not an error. Bainbridge points out that the eyeball, in a fetus, is initially a plaque on the skin of the embryo to which part of the brain is attracted. This stalk turns into a cup which almost surrounds the eye plaque, and then closes off the sequestration with the cornea. But the interior of the eye - the retina - and the optic nerve (or tract) are one, and part of the brain. As Bainbridge says: "So when you gaze lovingly into somebody's eyes, you are actually staring at the perforated frontmost extension of his or her brain... Yes, the iris is the brain - the window on the soul after all...and it is the only part of the brain which can move itself".
Which I think is pretty fantastic. But there is much, much more in the book. You will learn about other SF landscape features, such as The Island of Reil, The Islands of Calleja, Galen's Bridge, Area 51 (which may be an alien site after all!), and "the Tolkienesque Tract of Goll". What about the stegosaurus' second brain - is it real? Why do shingles come in stripes? What is the origin of gin, and how is it connected to the central nervous system? Why does the world spin when you lie down after a heavy bout of drinking? Was it just a conceit of Herman Melville to have Ishmael say : "...whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul...whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me...then I account it high time to get to sea", or is there some neurological underpinning to Ishmael's `hypos'? And are vertebrates simply the insect body plan turned upside down? How new are language and color in the evolution of humans? Was Richard Feynman `the most convincing creative synesthete'? Questions which are raised, and answered in this wonderful book.