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Jack

If Interested in how the mind works, a good book to be read :"Connectome", by Sebastian Seung

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 13, 2013

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As it happens, I know nothing in this domain , so I wanted to try to understand what is all about.
The book is written in such a way as to transmit to people like me, the basic knowledge they are interested in.

I'd like to make two special remarks :
First ,the subject itself is simply fascinating , and the author manage to write it in such a way, as it remains
fascinating . With the complex system which is the brain, his is,I would say, a notable performance !

Also ,I'd like to remark the sincerity of the author , a reputed neuroscientist :
Along the book, the (not so many) known facts are clearly separated from the hypotheses and models
difficult to confirm experimentally .

It becomes clear along the lecture , that the future of the brain understanding resides is supervening on the development of devices giving the scientist intimate access to neurons and , especially ,to the synapses , even to the entire structure of the connectome.
A good part of the book is thus dedicated to a review of the methods and technologies used in this field ,from the
rudimentary beginnings until the extremely sophisticated ,high-tech facilities of today .
By themselves, these technologies , fairly well described in the book together with their results,
are an astonishing products of the human brain !

With all the above in mind, I would recommend this book to anybody interested, at different levels,
in "what works in our brain" !

Jack Cohen,PhD
Tel Aviv,Israel

7 people found this helpful

Lane Yoder

Original, Thought-Provoking Perspectives in Beautiful Prose

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 21, 2012

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Connectome is beautifully written, in an entertaining style unlike anything you'll find in a standard neuroscience tome. I began reading by browsing randomly, and virtually every page turned up something interesting and thought-provoking. Even though I was already familiar with most of the material, the many original and surprising analogies make the points from a new and enlightening perspective. To get an idea of Seung's unique ideas and style, take a moment to see him compare and contrast the neuron, only his second-favorite cell, with sperm, his favorite. (Click on "Look Inside" and click on chapter three, "No Neuron Is an Island," in the Table of Contents.)

Shunning the customary attempt at an impartial exposition, Seung passionately promotes the importance of his own niche in neuroscience. How much more appealing and revealing science writing could be if more scientists had the courage to adopt this approach! While writing from a personal perspective, Seung still manages to give a "big picture" overview of the current state of neuroscience, including the human side of it with recent controversies and heated battles among scientists. Another valuable feature that is also somewhat rare in science writing is Connectome's fairly thorough treatment of what is still unknown and what is conjectured.

"Page-turner" is not a term commonly applied to science books, but Connectome qualifies. It should be the first choice for anyone who has some curiosity about neuroscience, and even those who think they have no interest could be converted. A third or fourth year neuroscience major would also find much of interest.

2 people found this helpful

Palchev

Informative but speculative

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 15, 2021

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Readable and informative. Somewhat repetitious, and some chapters more science fiction than science. But he is convincing in his claim that it is the connections among neuron that define the mind.

DrSalinas

I must have lost my Jennifer Aniston neuron...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 13, 2012

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I bought this book specifically because I was interested in the ongoing, multi-site (NIH, UCLA, MGH, WashU, UMinn) connectivity project: The Human Connectome Project--which uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the brain. While Dr. Seung does mention this effort, he quickly dismisses its importance because the spatial resolution of MRI is too poor for a true connectome to be constructed. Although this is true (MRIs are not as pretty as electron microscope scans), the functional maps created using these "imaging" techniques have a wealth of context to offer to the whole anatomical story of the brain.

That being said, this book does start off nicely, laying the foundation for what a connectome is and how important they can be when learning about and (possibly) treating the brain and its numerous maladies. For what it is, I'd say the first half of the book is interesting enough (although Dr. Seung really seems to "remember" Jennifer Aniston many times throughout the book; readers will become very familiar with what I mean fairly early in the book). After giving a nice layman's tour through the history and beginnings of connectomics, Dr. Seung then extrapolates on some of the possible uses of the connectome in the last few chapters. While these chapters largely represent what connectomics might mean to future generations, and I (currently) view these approaches as "wish list" applications, Seung goes a little overboard with the metaphysical hyperbole at the end.

I would have hoped for a more unitary approach in what is essentially the layman's introduction to connectomics.

8 people found this helpful

Librum

Fascinating

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 27, 2013

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Connectome is a first rate piece of reporting on one of the cutting edge subfields of the cognitive sciences. True, there is a lot of speculating and hypothesizing in this book. However, Seung is meticulous in distinguishing between what we know, what we don't know for sure but may know soon, and what we may or may not be able to ascertain empirically in the distant future. So it goes in science. I do not share the reservations of those reviewers who find fault in the speculative underpinnings of this book. Connectome is a rigorous exercise in hypothesis building, and Seung takes proper pains to describe the sorts of experiments and data one would need to defend a connectomics model of mind. It stands to reason that some version of connectomics must be, if not THE model of mind, then at least an essential step on the path to constructing one.

There is enormous food for thought in Connectome. It's a wonderful and hugely informative book. I give it my highest recommendation.

Steven Paglierani

A Flawed Genius

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 11, 2012

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Sebastian Sung is a brilliantly lucid writer. His analogies are clear; his ideas, interesting. Sadly his medical materialism taints the whole meal. According to Sung, there is no soul. Or anything else which can't be physically measured.

Most notably missing are any references to emergent properties. Nor does he refer to the idea that the knowable real world is based on naturally occurring fractal patterns, rather than on logically linear patterns. Worse yet, no where does he mention the idea that the only way to make scientifically accurate, real world measurements is with tipping-point based math. To Sung, simple counting math is enough.

Why give this book four stars then? Sung's explanations are amazingly clear. For this alone, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in neuro anatomy.

What about the fact that Sung believes the non material aspects of life all reduce to neurons? Well, geniuses are allowed their biases. And Sung is truly a genius. Steven Paglierani

One person found this helpful

Marian

Want to understand habits and intelligence and how to change your mind better?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 22, 2013

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Extremely informative
I found the audio (talking book) easier to follow at first but either (written or audio) is great for a most comprehensive picture of how the brain is doing what it does and how we make habits and connections in our minds/thinking patterns and how that affects our other brain functions, reactions and views of things and how to break those patterns. Students of neurology, psychology, personal growth etc will especially benefit. This is well written and more up to date and comprehensive then most other books on the subject of wiring and rewiring the brain. The author also keeps it simpler and easier to understand so that if you have no basic knowledge of the brain you can still understand and apply the information as he presents the basics in a way you can grasp it quickly and easily, with a lot of very good examples to give an even clearer picture of what he describes or is referring to. He has a great sense of humor as well and makes it not only easy reading but highly enjoyable.

One person found this helpful

Neo

not that interesting

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 3, 2020

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Probably expected too much as the author is with somewhat fame. However the content is not really engaging, nor informative about the connectivity structure of the brain. Maybe the author is busy with making money? The poor writing quality is probably also reflected in his publications which, for quite a while, only appear in low-profile journals / conferences, and can only show in top journals when there are many co-authors.

Virgil Swing

MIT prof sheds light on brain wiring

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 7, 2012

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Sebastian Seung, a professor of neuroscience and physics at MIT, explains in his book "Connectome" the latest findings on the incredibly complex wiring of our brains. But his book is a lot more than an academic exercise. He shows how learning about this wiring could do wonders to cure or treat Alzheimer's disease, autism and schizophrenia, among others. Thankfully, Seung writes in a way that a layman can understand. Unfortunately for those who themselves suffer from a mental disorder or who have family members that do,his clear prose also makes clear how much there is yet to learn and do before any magical cure will come from new knowledge on neurons, synapses and neurotransmitters. Yet Seung seems to be a hopeful man, and readers are likely to find hope that researchers like him are on the job of trying to unravel what goes wrong and right in our brains.

Rodolfo Brunner

Gute Einführung, verständlich erklärt, es fehlt mehr Information zu bekannten oder vermuteten Connectome

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on June 14, 2014

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Prof. Seung kann sehr gut und klar erklären, die Idee der Connectome ist gut begründet und logisch sinnvoll und consistent. Der Grundmechanismus wird einleuchtend dargestellt. Meiner Meinung nach wird zu viel Gewicht auf die Messmethoden und deren Erklärung gelegt; dies kann man nachschauen, oder gehört in den Appendix. Es fehlen mir mehr Beispiele und Diagramme für mögliche (oder bereits bekannte!) Connectome. Und es fehlt etwas der Bezug (oder die Abgrenzung!) zu den Netzwerkanalysen, wie sie von Olaf Sporns durchgeführt werden; diese könnten auch Grundlagen für die Connectome sein, wenn sie nicht sogar massiv überlappen.

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