The Tell Tale Brain

“Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence.”

- VS Ramachandran in the Reith Lectures (2003) for BBC Radio 4.Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (VSR for short) was born in 1951 in Tamil Nadu, India. After receiving medical training from Stanley Medical College in Madras in 1974, he moved to Trinity College, Cambridge, for his Ph.D. He has lectured widely on art - as well as visual perception and the brain - and is a trustee of the San Diego Museum of Art. So by all counts VSR is not just the average left brained geeky doctor, he also uses the right part of his brain to understand art (He doesn't much care for Picasso, he says). He has been one of the leading authorities of the world on Professor Ramachandran's work has concentrated on investigating phenomena such as phantom limbs, anosognosia or denial of paralysis and even anorexia.The Tell Tale Brain is a fascinating journey into exploring what makes our brain so complex. The books describes not only the mechanism of brain functions such as those vision, language, recognizing faces etc but also key features of human consciousness. This book draws upon VSR's years of clinical experience on the mysterious connections between the brain, the mind and the body. Once described as the Marco Polo of neuroscience, V.S. Ramachandran has mapped some of the most mysterious regions of the mind. He has studied visual perception and a range of conditions, from synesthesia (in which viewing black-and-white figures evokes the perception of color) to autism. The brain is often called the "Three Pound Enigma" for a reason. How does the newborn human brain that weighs about 350 to 400 grams (0.77 to 0.88 pounds) at birth evolve rapidly to become so complex at 1300 to 1400 grams (2.87 to 3.1 pounds) as to be able to design supercomputers and create languages with its own rules of grammar and create stories, design weapons that kill even an unborn child. VSR - one of the world's best known exponents of cognitive neuroscience attempts to unravel some of these mysteries by examining the changes that happen in his patients who are affected by a stroke that leaves just one part of the brain damaged. By understanding what happens to us when we function with just 5% of brain damage may help us understand exactly what that area controls. The results are fascinating. That is the one single reason to read this book which is rich in case studies of VSR's patients.Like the story of a patient who becomes progressively demented and simultaneously starts producing paintings that are hauntingly beautiful. Or the case of a young girl who is autistic but who sketch of galloping horse is found to be better than the one drawn by Michelangelo in blind tests. As the girl responds to treatment for autism, she begins to lose her remarkable sketching skills just as quickly. Could it possibly mean that there is an artist, a music composer, a novelist inside each one of us and needs something in the brain to be tweaked to be able to tap into this gift? An intriguing question that is one of the many this book explores. It explores unusual human conditions like the "telephone syndrome". A patient who is bedridden, unable to walk, recognize people (even his parents) or even interact with them suddenly comes alive when his father goes next door and phones him. The patient becomes fully conscious, recognizes his dad and converses with him. Is the key to self awareness lying buried in this condition?xOr the curious case of the patients with Synesthesia where a person visualizes numbers as colors. The famous music composer Franz Liszt saw musical tomes as colors and often told his orchestra to play the note a little bluer or a deep violet. His orchestra players realized after a while that it was not a joke, Liszt actually saw the notes as colors. Ramachandran sees this condition not just as a quirk but as a key to understanding how we develop our abilities to learn languages and use of metaphors. His research shows that as many as one in thirty people have synesthesia. It is a condition that affects artists and writers eight times more. William Shakespeare, in his play "As You Like It", compares the world to a stage and that we humans must play our part. Or when Sylvia Plath, compares the blood flowing from her cut thumb to the running of a million soldiers, could it be that they were synesthates?The book is fascinating to say the least and takes you through the world of cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychiatry and for sure, it is a guided tour of Dr Ramachandran's tell tale brain. The trained doctor tries to solve the mysteries of the three pound enigma with the skill of a detective, looking for evidence and creating fascinating hypotheses. He has some interesting theories on why certain kind of art is viewed as aesthetically appealing. He of course looks at it from the view of a neuroscientist. While it is interesting to read, I did not find that section to be as convincing.The only speed breaker of the book is the use of medical terms strewn liberally in the text like when he says:

"As a central player in your emotional life, your insula sends signals to and receives signals from other emotional centers in your brain including the amygdala, the autonomic nervous system (powered by the hypothalamus), and the orbitofrontal cortex, which is involved in nuanced emotional judgments."

But don't let this sentence worry you. This book helps you understand the mysteries of the brain. VSR leads you across a fascinating landscape with the skill of a well travelled expert guiding you through the Amazonian rainforest (ummm... am I a synesthate?) and also tells you that there is much of the forest that remains unexplored. Makes you want to come back the next time to see if he has discovered something new and fascinating. No wonder Time Magazine listed him among the 100 most influential people in the world today.Final Take: Must Read-------------------------------------A lovely feature by PBS on the Secret Life of the Brain <click here>Video of a talk by VS Ramachandran on the phenomenon called Synesthesia is eight times more common in artists and novelists <click here>Read about Time Magazine's description of VS Ramachandran being among the 100 most influential in the world <click here>Explore other related links <click here>