Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

I just came across a NY Times review of the following book:

_Reading in the Brain The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention_ (2009)
by Stanislas Dehaene.
("A French cognitive scientist explains the phenomenon of literacy and its effects on the mind.")

See the review at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/boo...
The article is entitled: "Mind Reading".
Excerpt from the article:
"We are seeing a new generation of plastic baby brains reshaped by the new digital environment. Boomer hippies ... struggled to create interactive computer graphics. Their Generation Y children grew up with those graphics as second nature, as much a part of their early experience as language or print. There is every reason to think that their brains will be as strikingly different as the reading brain is from the illiterate one."

Exciting thoughts! See the GR description for more info.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67...

Another book which interests me is the following:
_The Human Brain Book_ (2009) by Rita Carter

The GR description says that it provides "an incomparable insight into every facet of the brain."

A customer reviewing the book at Amazon says that the book is: "one of the most visually informative books on the brain I have ever seen."

It includes an interactive DVD which is clickable and allows zooming.

RELATED MATERIAL

"The brain loves novelty, so if you do crossword puzzles, try shifting to a different type of puzzle — Sudoku, for example, he says. Or learn a new language. Play a new instrument."

FROM: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/...

TITLE OF ARTICLE: "How Exercise And Other Activities Beat Back Dementia"
by Patti Neighmond April 15, 2013

MORE RELATED MATERIAL
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ABOUT: "the brain's potential to transform itself"

"Patterns of [brain] activity that underlie depression can be shifted when patients learn to think about their sad thoughts differently."

"... if you tell people that their brain can change, it galvanizes them," says psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University, whose 2006 book "Mindsets" explores the power of belief to alter personality and other traits. 'You see a rapid improvement in things like motivation and grades, or in resilience in the face of setbacks.' None of that happens, or at least not as readily, in people who believe they are stuck with the brain they have."

FROM: Newsweek magazine article, "When Does Your Brain Stop Making New Neurons?", p. 62, July 9, 2007.
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JOY'S COMMENT: It seems to all boil down to "attitude".

QUOTES:
"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees." -Marcel Proust
FROM: http://www.giga-usa.com/gigaweb1/quot...

"The technology for imaging the brain and teasing apart which neuron is doing what when (and under what biochemical control) has improved very rapidly and continues to improve."
-Elizabeth Moon