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Brain That Changes Itself, The: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science | 
 enlarge | Author: M.d., Norman Doidge
Creator: Jim Bond
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.25
You Save: $9.70 (39%)
New (5) from $15.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  97 reviews
Sales Rank: 311382
Format: Audiobook, Mp3 Audio, Unabridged
Media: MP3 CD
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 1423368010
EAN: 9781423368014
ASIN: 1423368010
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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Product Description
“Fascinating. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.” – Oliver Sacks
The discovery that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains – even into old age – is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries. In this revolutionary look at the brain, bestselling author, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., introduces both the brilliant scientists championing this new science of neuroplasticity and the astonishing progress of the people whose lives they’ve transformed. Introducing principles we can all use as well as a riveting collection of case histories – stroke patients cured, a woman with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, learning and emotional disorders overcome, IQs raised, and aging brains rejuvenated – The Brain That Changes Itself has “implications for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history” (The New York Times).
“Readers will want to read entire sections aloud and pass the book on to someone who can benefit from it….Links scientific experimentation with personal triumph in a way that inspires awe.” - The Washington Post
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| Customer Reviews: Read 92 more reviews...
 The Brain That Changes Itself October 9, 2008
Received the book in a timely manner and in perfect condition. Unfortunately, I have not had time to read this book.
Probably shouldn't be reviewing but I want the message out of my email!!!
 Accessible Science October 7, 2008
Dr Doigdge does an amazing job of teaching difficult scientific concepts in a manner that made me want to keep reading because I was understanding it. Who would have thought that a nonfiction book about brain plasticity would become a page turner? I hope he writes another book about the brain. As he points out, we are discovering so much about it and at a fast pace.
The book that changes the brain that reads it October 6, 2008
This book looks like a solid sort of semi academic-y pot-boiler but in fact it is a hugely engaging, eye-popping even,take on how wrong the long held belief of 'localizationism' was (the view that the brain is made up mostly of hard-wired areas fit for only one purpose) for example, claims like, the auditory cortex is only for hearing, the visual cortex is only for seeing and such like.
it turns out that the brain is highly plastic (able to rewire itself over time) given the appropriate stimulus, and when disasters occur in the body or the brain, other parts can be recruited in to do the processing work.
It's a basic truism that we learn far more from failure than success.
Health disasters that befall people can turn out to be very instructive and beneficial for future sufferers.
Even those with very rare conditons can benefit when a seemingly intractable case is handled by an inspired doctor/scientist improvising with unorthodox methods. There is much hope to draw from all this, especially when success is achieved with conditions that the mainstream considers to be irreversible.
Brain plasticity is the coherent theme of the whole book and it is always the focus of every chapter in ever more novel and surprising ways.
I cannot begin to do justice to how Doidge explains this, because he is quite simply brilliant at writing.
Each chapter concentrates on a particular narrative or story of how plastic the brain is, the chapters are like high quality Vanity Fair articles and would even stand on their own, expect that there is a sense of progression in the book and later chapters recapitulate findings from earlier ones.
I have a sense that Doidge (who is a psychiatrist I believe) would have spent an enormous amount of time refining this book as it is beautifully crafted, hearteningly articulate and deserves to win a prestigious prize.
my favourites saying from the book is about how plasticity comes about:
"neurons that fire together wire together"
Read it, you're in for a massive treat.
This is an important, groundbreaking and fascinating book. For another, written by another brilliant psychiatrist, I recommend October 3, 2008
That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Rako's book is remarkably candid, insightful, and wonderfully well-written. The writing just flows.
Setting New Goals September 30, 2008
I was impressed by the various examples presented of the plasticity of the brain and realized that this carefully written book would be helpful to anyone challenged by the effects of aging on one's capabilities. I have benefited from Posit Science's Brain Fitness and Cortex Insight programs and this book encouraged me to continue to exercise my brain to enjoy improvement that comes in small steps.
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