The Tell-Tale Brain
Encyclopedia
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human is a 2010 nonfiction book by V. S. Ramachandran
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Vilayanur Subramanian "Rama" Ramachandran, born 1951, is a neuroscientist known for his work in the fields of behavioral neurology and visual psychophysics...

 that explores, from a neurological viewpoint, various aspects of human perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...

 and how they relate to appreciation of art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, the development of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

, and how perception and the way it's processed make humans more like other animals, in particular hominids, or unique among species. For this, Ramachandran investigates cases of patients where certain systems in the brain of an otherwise normal individual have been disrupted including among others: autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...

, synesthesia
Synesthesia
Synesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...

, phantom limb
Phantom limb
A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. 2 out of 3 combat veterans report this feeling. Approximately 60 to 80% of individuals with an amputation experience phantom sensations in their...

s, Cotard delusion
Cotard delusion
The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome or Walking Corpse Syndrome is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which people hold a delusional belief that they are dead , do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs...

, and Broca's aphasia.

In the final chapter, Ramachandran discusses seven main concepts which define the human aspect of self
Self
The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...

 and how each may be disrupted by a specific neurological disorder. The concepts are: unity, continuity, embodiment, privacy, social embedding, free-will, and self-awareness.

Reception

Tell-Tale Brain was on the New York Times best-seller list and received largely positive reviews. Oliver Sacks writes, "No one is better than V. S. Ramachandran at combining minute, careful observations with ingenious experiments and bold adventurous theorizing, ... a profoundly intriguing and compelling guide to the intricacies of the human brain." Allan Snyder, Director of the Center for the Mind, Australian National University adds, "A masterpiece... Ramachandran is the foremost pioneer — the Galileo — of neurocognition." Nickolas Humphrey, Professor of University College, London "Ramachandran has written an astonishing book. His humanity, humor and scientific genius inform every passage."

The book also received much acclaim in book reviews published in newspapers and journals: "Much of “The Tell-Tale Brain,”... is a general tour of neuroscience. There are lively treatments of three areas in which Ramachandran has himself done pioneering work: visual perception, pain in amputated “phantom” limbs, and synesthesia... Ramachandran is an exceptionally inventive researcher who tosses off suggestions at a dizzying pace" Antony Gottlieb, International Herald Tribune (29-1-11).

"I cannot imagine a better account of the sweep of contemporary neuroscience... excellent... will give pleasure to anyone interested in original thinking about the brain." Clive Cookson, Financial Times (15.1.11)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2275273a-1f56-11e0-8c1c-00144feab49a.html#axzz1BI6rfptv

'"What a piece of work is man!" How many monkeys would it have taken to come up with that tag from Hamlet? Are we really no more than "chimps with a software upgrade"? Yes and – emphatically – no, comes the reply from neurologist VS Ramachandran. Our brains are those of apes: Ramachandran is in no doubt of that, yet at the same time we're uniquely special too. His life's work has been about getting to grips with the mental mechanisms that make the miraculous mundane. He goes to real-life clinical cases for evidence of exactly how the brain behaves in action or examines the experimental record for clues to the wonderful intricacy and astonishing scope of the human mind.' ***** Scotsman (15.1.11)
"When VS Ramachandran, one of the world’s most influential neurologists, wants to get inside a human head, he doesn’t reach for his scalpel or MRI scanner. Instead, like Sherlock Holmes (to whom he is often compared), he seizes on an oddity in a case study, then begins a pleasing process of deduction interspersed with leaps of excitingly creative thought. This absorbing book charts the acclaimed experiments he has performed around the world and at the University of California’s cutting-edge Centre for the Brain, and explains how they have helped unravel the workings of the human mind.’ James McConnachie, Sunday Times (9.1.11)

‘Compared with physics and chemistry, says Ramachandran, neuroscience is a young upstart. But it’s growing up fast. This book, his “modest contribution to the grand attempt to crack the code of the human brain”, is written with all his synapses lit up like supernovas. His mission to educate and entertain is perfectly achieved... Like Sherlock Holmes, he imagines what might be true and tests it for probability. Neuroscience and stand-up comedy collide with eureka results.’ Iain Finlayson, Times (1.1.11)

The book is mentioned in the Eureka supplement of the Times (January 2011) – ‘A Holmesian look at what we learn about human nature when the brain goes wrong, written by one of the leading neuroscientists in the world.'

The book won the 2010 Vodafone Crossword Book Award
Vodafone Crossword Book Award
Vodafone Crossword Book Award is an Indian book award sponsored by Vodafone and Crossword Bookstores. It is India's biggest private sector award. The Award was instituted in 1998 with the intention of competing with The Booker Prize, Commonwealth Writers' Prize or The Pulitzer Prize.The award...

 (Non-Fiction).

The Tell-Tale Brain did receive some critical reviews.Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...

, the well known British writer, felt that Ramachandran did not fully engage the ideas presented in the book:

"Ramachandran wanders along intriguing neural pathways, pausing to investigate strange disorders, but he leaves the impression that he is an explorer who has yet to leave the coast. Further, he appears not fully to appreciate that the interior of this vast continent he is mapping may be at war. His book is intermittently fascinating, but is not important in the way of Iain McGilchrist The Master and His Emissary, last year’s magisterial study of the brain’s two opposed hemispheres, which it nicely (though unintentionally) complements – even to the extent of using some of the same illustrations."
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