Images of Mind (Scientific American) [Paperback]

Michael J. Posner (Author), Marcus E. Raichle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0716760193 | ISBN-13: 978-0716760191 | Edition: 1

What happens in the brain when we speak? Learn? Recall memories? Until recently, it was hard to tell. But positron emission tomography (PET) and other brain imaging techniques are radically transforming scientists' ability to see the brain at work and measure the changes that occur. Images of Mind explores the latest applications and future potential of the dynamic field of cognitive neurosciences.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael I. Posner, one of the world's most respected cognitive psychologists, is professor of Psychology and former Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Marcus E. Raichle is Professor of Neurology and Radiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and is one of the pioneers in using positron emission tomography.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: W. H. Freeman; 1 edition (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0716760193
• ISBN-13: 978-0716760191
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,247,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book about the hardware of neurotechnology., August 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Images of Mind (Scientific American) (Paperback)

Once a month we get a book on somebody else's view of the mind, the brain, or both.

Instead of more theory, Images Of Mind describes the machinery neuroscientists use to take all the pictures that have sparked all the theories about how the brain works. Complete with lush illustrations and lucid descriptions, Images takes the reader on a historical tour of the devices scientists have used to "watch" the mind work. From EEGs to PET scanners, Raichle and Posner describe how neurotechnological devices work and what they measure.

The writing is direct and elegant, meant for the pro and the layperson.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Upbeat, but oddly organized and a little unclear, May 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Images of Mind (Scientific American) (Paperback)

This is an enthusiastically written and nicely illustrated book, but the order of presentation is strange, possibly a result of bad editing. You might find it helpful to skip straight to pages 63-66 and study the introductory material that appears, for some reason, a quarter of the way through the text. It explains how the PET scanning technique works. The book nods at other technologies that produce and/or record signals from the brain, including MRI and electroencephalography, but it is basically a book about PET. The acronym stands for Positron Emission Tomography.

PET scanning is a low resolution technique that produces a computed picture of oxygen uptake by tissues in the brain. The experimental idea is to get the brain of a human experimental volunteer to do something - recite the multiplication tables, say - and then try to notice whether and how the given project changes the relative oxygen demand of brain tissue in various regions of the brain.

The hope would be to identify local volumes of brain tissue which are associated with and thus perhaps even perform some basic psychological function. In practice, the brain obligingly lights up here and there - presumably consuming oxygen in order to energize its thinking.

From the explanations given in the book, it appears that the PET scanned pictures, which are quite beautiful, are thought to reflect heightened metabolic activity in the nerves of the brain, and only in the nerves. The book speaks often about functional brain "modules" and "assemblages of nerves." It is not clear to me, from the text, just how the scanner distinguishes between the nerves and all the other types of tissue in the brain. The glia, for example, outnumber the nerve cells about 9 to 1 in the brain, and these cells breathe oxygen too. In other words it is not clear, from the book, how the scanner somehow selectively singles out nerve cells and snaps their picture.

And maybe it doesn't. I was left wondering what a PET scan of some other complex organ, such as the liver, looks like. The PET technique may just be fine, brilliant in fact, but if it is, then maybe it deserves a clearer explanation that I could find in here.

8 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Since it is irreproducible, it is useless, March 8, 1999

By 

Yehouda Harpaz ([e-mail]) (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Images of Mind (Scientific American) (Paperback)

The problem with using brain imaging to understand how it works is that currently all the published papers contain irreproducible data. This means that these nice papers show us more noise than real data, and 'contribute' confusion rather than understanding. This book, like the rest of the literature, 'deals' with this problem by simply ignoring it.