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Susan A. Greenfield: The Human Brain: A Guided TourScience Masters Series192 pagesPublisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (January 1997)OCR-ed scanIn 1994, Greenfield (Pharmacology/Oxford) was asked to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, a popular series aimed at teenagers and broadcast by the BBC. This set of five essays, which are aimed at adult readers, derives from that series.Description:What would you see if you removed the skull from the human brain and then slowly worked your way deeper and deeper into the brain, to the level of an individual neuron? With renowned brain researcher Susan Greenfield as your guide, here is your chance to gain a bird’s eye view of the human brain—and to learn more about what the brain is, how it works, what happens when one part of the brain is made dysfunctional through stroke or accident, how brain mood-modifying drugs find their targetsFor the lay reader, Greenfield, a science writer and professor of pharmacology at Lincoln College in Oxford, offers an enlightening look at the human brain and mind, clarifying what researchers now know and what difficult and tantalizing questions they are still struggling to answerThe author approaches the brain first as a physical object, exploring its different regions, and then examining certain functions, specifically movement and vision, to demonstrate how these are carried out by the different regions engaging in a kind of “balanced dialogue.” Greenfield then shifts her approach and tackles the brain from a cellular level. She begins with a single neuron and explains how the brain is built in increasingly complex circuits. She shows how neurons communicate with each other chemically and how this communication is affected by mood-altering drugs such as nicotine, morphine and its derivative heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. She next turns to the development of the brain from the beginning of life, showing how its neuronal circuitry constantly changes as a result of experience, and tackling the issue of when consciousness arises. In her final chapter she considers the various kinds of memory, raising tough questions about the relationship of brain to mind. Happily for the reader, Greenfield, who recently began giving free public lectures on the brain in the City of London, has developed a keen sense of what curious nonscientists want to know and, equally important, how to impart scientific information with verve and clarity.ContentsPrefaceChapter I: Brains Within BrainsChapter 2: Systems of SystemsChapter 3: Pulse, ImpulseChapter 4: Cells Upon CellsChapter 5: With Mind in MindConclusion: Looking ForwardFurther ReadingIndexLook inside the book:http://www.amazon.com/Human-Brain-Guided-Science-Masters/dp/…Preview how the scan looks like:http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7480/greenfieldscr.jpg