In 1996 Joseph LeDoux's The Emotional Brain presented a revelatory examination of the biological bases of our emotions and memories. Now, the world-renowned expert on the brain has produced with a groundbreaking work that tells a more profound story: how the little spaces between the neurons—the brain's synapses—are the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and remember. Synapses encode the essence of personality, enabling each of us to function as a distinctive, integrated individual from moment to moment. Exploring the functioning of memory, the synaptic basis of mental illness and drug addiction, and the mechanism of self-awareness, Synaptic Self is a provocative and mind-expanding work that is destined to become a classic.
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LeDoux believes the answer rests in the synapses, key players in the brain's intricately designed communication system. In other words, the pathways by which a person's "hardwired" responses (nature) mesh with his or her unique life experiences (nurture) determine that person's individuality. Here, LeDoux nimbly compresses centuries of philosophy, psychology, and biology into an amazingly clear picture of humanity's journey toward understanding the self.
Equally readable is his comprehensive science lesson, where detailed circuit speak reads like an absorbing--yet often humorous--mystery novel. Skillfully presenting research studies and findings alongside their various implications, LeDoux makes a solid case for accepting a synaptic explanation of existence and provides to the reader generous helpings of knowledge, amusement, and awe along the way. --Liane Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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The book is well written, flows nicely until the near end,(drags a little just after chapter 6 however, that is why a 4 not a 5 rating) i'd recommend "synaptic sickness" be moved to an appendix if it couldn't be integrated into the body of the book better. The scholarly apparatus is kept to a minimum yet the push to ratify/justify the new knowledge via experimental data and reference to other scientists work is clearly evident and makes the book a good intro to the field, as further study is facilitated. I found the use of concrete experimental examples and the prolific use of diagrams (especially figures 6.4 - 6.6) particularly good(very superior), the book was always engrossing and a stimulating read, not common in books written by scientists who are not teachers as well.
As to particularly important ideas: i would point to chapter 6= "small change" and the systematic analysis of Hebbian plasticity and how long-term potentiation supplies the synaptic justification for memory and learning the key chapter in the whole book. The chapters before are introductory prologue to this idea, and the chapters subsequent are particular examples of how Hebbian plasticity and synaptic change unlie the circuits of the brain and hence become who we are.
And unusual emphasis(compared to the field as a whole) is on the emotional side of the triad: cognition, emotion, motivation, this is due to the author's interest and last book as a result of his professional research into fear circuitry. I appreciate the emphasis as a long overdue correction to neurology being somewhat, like philosophy of the mind, concentrated on the cognition part of the equation. With this emphasis and direction much of the book dedicated to showing fear circuits and like analysis means this ends up with teaching you a wider view of the brain than most introductory books. A good thing.
So i wholehearted recommend the book to anyone who had the patience and interest to finish reading this review. thanks.
LeDoux's Synaptic Self is a wonderful book loaded with clear understandable explanations and insights (his wife, a "fantastic writer," assisted) on how the brain works based on the most current neuroscience (e.g., how neurons/synapses/neurotransmitters/neuro modulators work/don't work, implicit/explicit learning/memory mechanism explanations, nature/nurture considerations, the "mental trilogy" of cognition/emotion/motivation, and much more). The book's bottom-line, he writes, is "you are your synapses." With this book, "know thyself," and even fix thyself, seem more attainable. It's a book I'll reread/study for a while.
The following are quotes from the last chapter:
Life requires many brain functions, functions require systems, and systems are made of synaptically connected neurons. We all have the same brain systems, and the number of neurons in each brain system is more or less the same in each of us as well. However, the particular way those neurons are connected is distinct, and that uniqueness, in short, is what makes us who we are.
What is remarkable is that synapses in all of these systems are capable of being modified by experience... Emotion systems [as an example]... are programmed by evolution to respond to some stimuli, so-called innate or unconditioned stimuli, like predators or pain. However, many of the things that elicit emotions in us or motivate us to act in certain ways are not preprogrammed into our brains as part of our species heritage but have to be learned by each of us. Emotion systems learn by association - when an emotionally arousing stimulus is present, other stimuli that are also present acquire emotion-arousing qualities (classical conditioning), and actions that bring you in contact with emotionally desirable stimuli or protect you from harmful or unpleasant ones are learned (instrumental conditioning.) As in all other types of learning, emotional associations are formed by synaptic changes in the brain system involved in processing the stimuli. Some of the brain's plastic emotional processors include systems involved in detecting and responding to danger, finding and consuming food, identifying potential mates and having sex.
Because synaptic plasticity occurs in most if not all brain systems, one might be tempted to conclude that the majority of brain systems are memory systems. But [as LeDoux argues in chapter 5], a better way of thinking about this is that the ability to be modified by experience is a characteristic of many brain systems, regardless of their specific function. Brain systems, in other words, were for the most part not designed as storage devices - plasticity is not their main job assignment. They were instead designed to perform particular tasks like processing sounds or sights, detecting food or danger or mates, controlling actions, and so on. Plasticity is simply a feature that helps them do their job better.
Functions depend on connections: break the connections and you lose the functions...
From LeDoux's Synaptic Self
Ledoux concentrates on memory, having in his last book focused on emotion. He explains memory systems from molecules to circuits, with the classical and most recent findings, including some from his own lab. He also gives a quick overview of the emotional systems of the brain, the working memory complex of the prefrontal cortex, and motivational systems of neuromodulator and brainstem and thalamocortical systems. He calls that the mental trilogy, namely cognition, emotion and motivation. Ledoux also wrote a nice chapter on some brain diseases that seem to alter these functions selectively. And thats it. Ledoux has explained the self. Or has he? Well, memory, emotion, cognition and motivation surely contribute to the making of the self, especially memory. How much of a self is left in a retrograde and anterograde severe amnesic? But this is not saying that putting them together is all the self is about. Its like saying vision, attention and waking are what consicousness is. Vision provides content, attention access, and waking a necesary condition for consicousness, but together they are not the phenomenon in question. I bring out consicousness because Ledoux says the really hard and important question in neuroscience is the self, and not consciousness. To me it seems almost silly to try to understand the former without the latter.
Ledoux then forgets about the feeling of the self itself, the possible bases of it on body schemas and body signals, the primacy of movement. He does touch on volition and free will, and is as naturalistic about these issues as one can be, which I think is a good thing. The final chapter presents 7 principles he can extract from his discussions, and meybe here we can find his theory of the self. Unfortunately, he seems just to add another thing, binding, to the picture. So binding, convergence zones, emotion and motivation, memory, placticity, hebbbian mechanisms of memory, together are the self. Again, I would say they are an important part of the self, but not the self itself. I may be wrong or maybe dogmatic about what would count as an explanation for the self. Maybe there is nothing more to the self than those mechanisms Ledoux lists. But work in theorethical neuroscience like by Damasio, or Patricia Churchland and philosophers like Bermudez show that the self is more complex than Ledoux seems to think.
At the end this book is of value, and I never said it did not make progress on the problem of the neurobiology of the self. However, it does not by any means solve it. It presents a nice theory of the integration of cognitive and affective mechanisms, and manages to cover a great deal of issues in simple terms, and that is always an achievement.
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