The Tell-Tale Brain

VS Ramachandran

Random House India

384 Pages, R499

A patient in San Francisco becomes progressively demented, yet starts creating paintings that are hauntingly beautiful. Has his brain damage somehow unleashed a hidden talent? Eminent neuroscientist VS Ramachandran takes us on a fascinating journey into the human brain, studying patients who exhibit bizarre symptoms, and using them to understand the functions of the normal brain. Along the way he asks big questions: How did abstract thinking evolve? What is art? Why do we laugh? How are these hardwired in the neural mechanisms of the human brain, and why did they evolve?