Juicy quotes:
“At the time, prefrontal lobotomy or orbitofrontal undercutting — a less radical
method of treating severe mental disorders — might have been useful in treating
severely psychotic patients without causing more disruption.”
“While the patient was unconscious for fifteen minutes, the lobotomy was
performed by jabbing an ice pick through the bone above each eye and wiggling
it back and forth.”
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COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: THE BIOLOGY OF THE MIND Michael Gazzaniga, Richard Ivry, and George Mangun.
Wow. Now this is what every textbook wished it could be — it just screams ‘suave’ with a post-modern (ho ho) sensibility. We can only assume that the cover art is an ironic comment on the place of optical illusions in our pre/post-apocalyptic society, and the title’s set in high contrast black-on-white, with slick, modern typography. Flipping through the pages, we notice a pleasing pastel color scheme, with several large, interesting color pictures of brain sections, Picasso art pieces, and photographs of famous scientists sprinkled generously throughout. The writing is at once highly informative, professional, and scientific, with just a dash of pleasing asides and colloquialisms. As for the color scheme, periwinkle, eggplant, slate, and oatmeal dominate, oddly reminiscent of colors of loathsome ‘Abercrombie and Fitch’ sweater merchandise, but peculiarly becoming in a textbook setting. Each chapter contains a thought-provoking interview with a prominent neuroscientist. What’s next for this textbook, reviews of German minimal techno 12″s? It’s hard to see how this book could get more hip than it already is.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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