A Brief History of the Human Brain: Interesting Accidents, Experiments and Discoveries

Aimed at general readers, this book spans Ancient Egypt and Greece, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the modern day, providing a fascinating collection of brain-related facts and stories. It covers the dreadful techniques of early surgery, trepanning and frontal lobotomies, electroshock therapy, the use of phrenology, psychosurgery and mind control. It describes the contributions of scientists like Thomas Willis and notable patients such as Phineas Gage and his catastrophic brain injuries, and it tells us where to find such famous brains. It gives insight into the major functions of the brain, the degenerating brain, the female brain and the sleep deprived brain, and offers glimpses into the future of brain research.