LeDoux, Joseph. Synaptic Self:
How Our Brains Become Who We Are.
Viking. Jan. 2002. c.400p. index. ISBN 0-670-03028-7.
—Gregg Sapp, Science Lib., SUNY at Albany
Brain/mind theorists tread upon sensitive territory
when they address the issue of personality. Many
will readily concede that the activities of the
mind result from physical process in the brain,
but they find a purely material explanation of selfhood
troubling. LeDoux (Ctr. For Neural Sciences, New
York Univ.; The Emotional Brain) puts forth a new,
unified theory in which neurology shapes experience
and vice versa. The critical locus is the synapses,
which convey information and stimulate functions
within the brain. The interconnections of the synapses
are plastic, shaped by a person's experiences, and
thus give rise to unique thoughts and feelings.
Memory arises from these, creating a sense of self
and personality. LeDoux is not the first to discuss
the role of memory in selfhood (see, for instance,
Daniel Schacter's Searching for Memory); nor is
he the first to stress the importance of synaptic
firing in brain/mind interactions (see Gerald Edelman's
Bright Air, Brilliant Fire). He does, however, bring
together these pieces to render a convincingly integrated
theory. It will be of vital interest to those in
the field and to informed lay readers who have followed
the debates.
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LeDoux, Joseph. SYNAPTIC
SELF: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. Viking (400
pp.) Jan. 14, 2002. ISBN: 0-670-03028-7
— Kirkus Reviews
The author of The Emotional Brain (1996) elaborates
on the theory that the particular patterns of synaptic
connections in our brain provide the keys to who
we are.
LeDoux (Science/NYU) begins with a short course
on what neurons are, how synapses connect them,
and why these connections are key to the brain's
many functions. He follows that with a discussion
of brain development, explaining how nature and
nurture together shape the synaptic organization
of the brain. Genes make the proteins that determine
how the neurons are wired together, and experiences
create changes in these arrangements. Synapses,
the junctions between neurons, encode and store
information, which is accessible to us through memory.
Without learning and memory, LeDoux points out,
the self would be an empty expression of our genetic
constitution. He sets himself the technical task
of explaining just how neuronal circuits are modified
by what we learn and remember; he considers how
the brain systems that underlie thinking, emotion,
and motivation develop, interact with, and influence
each other to make us who we are. Arguing that synaptic
changes underlie mental illness, LeDoux looks at
the implications of his synaptic theory to the understanding
and treatment of schizophrenia, depression, and
anxiety disorders. In addition to describing research
in his own lab, he discusses the work of his predecessors
and his colleagues in the brain sciences. To keep
the sometimes dauntingly technical presentation
as clear as possible for those without a background
in neuroscience, the author has supplied pared-down
line drawings accompanied by straightforward captions,
additional helpful background information, complete
with suggested readings, is included from time to
time in boxed inserts.
While the general reader may find portions of the
text challenging, LeDoux offers a fascinating view
into that "most unaccountable of machinery,"
the human brain.
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Joseph LeDoux SYNAPTIC SELF:
How Our Brains Become Who We Are.Viking
—Andy Battaglia
Nothing throws the act of reading into disorienting
relief like a book about neuroscience. Language
wields considerable power on its own, but it's another
thing to pore over the mechanics of what makes language
work, as neurons size up potential partners in different
parts of the brain, squirt amino acids across synapses,
and change the brain's chemical makeup in ways that
convert data into the gooey matter of thought. The
relationship between the literal and the ethereal
forms the basis of Synaptic Self, a fascinating,
sometimes overwhelming attempt to follow the machinations
of the brain to their abstract conclusions. Starting
with a synopsis of the evolving nature of the "self"
in philosophy, psychology, and physiology, Joseph
LeDoux, a professor and brain researcher at New
York University, addresses that most unwieldy of
subjects through the empirical divinations of neuroscience.
The core of his argument rests on synapses, the
empty gaps that neurons bridge to form circuits.
LeDoux's remarkably accessible descriptions of the
process crackle like the electrical storms that
rain chemical ooze on the brain. That initial charge
fades as he digs deeper into necessarily difficult
material, sketching out functionally distinct processes
with impenetrable details and ostensible "Eureka!"
moments that prove anticlimactic to the casual brain
fan. About a third of the material is exceedingly
difficult, but LeDoux succeeds in airing it out
as he wanders between the rigors of science and
the tantalizing questions lying beneath the surface.
Defining the conscious/unconscious self as "the
totality of what an organism is physically, biologically,
psychologically, socially, and culturally,"
he presents a convincing case for his seemingly
reductive ties between deduction and extrapolation
by exposing the commutative properties of cause
and effect. It's a readily acknowledged tall order,
as most brain research derives from experiments
on rats chasing cheese or
monkeys maneuvering for Fruit Loops. But LeDoux's
image of magically self-actualized neural circuitry
allows him to point toward the tangible birth of
the ghosts in the machine. One particularly memorable
anecdote compares the fundamental
similarities between the neural processes of humans
looking at pictures of distant loved ones, and lab
rats who continue to exhibit trained behavior long
after their incentive is taken away. Though he's
careful not to reduce all of existence to currently
knowable science, LeDoux seems most enthralled by
empiricism's potential to expand its reach. Synaptic
Self ultimately inspires more questions than it
answers, but it goes a long way in ordaining the
steps to humanity's timeless tango with tautology.
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Joseph LeDoux SYNAPTIC SELFl:
How Our Brains Become Who We Are
Viking( 406 pp)
—Seminary Co-op Bookstores
What do brain synapses have to do with our personality?
We hear a lot about our genetic makeup determining
personality but how these genetic forces manifest
themselves ultimately depend on they combine with
life experiences and
memory. These experiences are of course processed
in the synapses and it is in these brain transmissions
that LeDoux seeks to understand how the mind shapes
who we are.
LeDoux states, "genetic forces, operating on
the synaptic arrangement of the brain, constrain,
at least to some extent, the way we act, think,
and feel." While some might object to LeDoux's
stress on genes and synapses as leaning too much
in the nature (as opposed to nurture) camp, he argues
that his approach gives a fuller understanding of
how the genetic hardwiring of the brain interacts
with psychological and social factors and what we
learn from life. More precisely, LeDoux believes
that "all learning, in other
words, depends on the operation of genetically programmed
capacities to learn.
Learning involves the nurturing on nature."
Like his earlier highly-praised work
The Emotional Brain, The Synaptic Self is an accessible
and fascinating
account of the role of the brain and how the conscious
and unconscious shape
our personality.
Daniel Schacter, Chairman of Psychology at Harvard
University and author of
The Seven Sins of Memory, writes, "In this
pathbreaking synthesis, Joseph
LeDoux draws on dazzling insights from the cutting
edge of neuroscience to
generate a new conception of an enduring mystery:
the nature of the self.
Enlightening and engrossing, LeDoux's bold formulating
will change the way you
think about who you are."
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Newscientist Review:
If you think of your "self" as that special
inner being that makes your decisions and has your
experiences, then be warned that this book is not
about that sort of self. It does not even consider
the odd fact that we
think of ourselves as something different from our
brains. The "self" of
the title is more like personality, or the sum of
our brain's
activities.
Synaptic Self succeeds as a clearly written overview
of how synapses
work and how neurotransmitter and neuromodulator
substances carry out
their functions. LeDoux outlines a "mental
trilogy": the mind as an
amalgam of cognition, emotion and motivation. When
so many authors
concentrate entirely on cognition, it is refreshing
to have the balance
redressed--even if much of the research reported
is on fear in rats, and
the section on human love is based on pair-bonding
in prairie voles.
LeDoux argues that synaptic changes, not specific
molecules, underlie
mental illness. He gives fascinating detail on how
synapses change in
normal memory, in the processes of ageing and in
Alzheimer's disease.
But his stirring conclusion that "You are your
synapses" is less than
convincing.
Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, writer, and
broadcaster based in
Bristol
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