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Research on the brain, one of the few genuine frontiers remaining
in science, continues to fascinate us, as it offers a glimpse into the deepest
foundations of humanity. But in spite of great progress in understanding specific
mental functions, like perception, memory, and emotion, little has been learned
about how the self -- the essence of who a person is, both in his or her own mind
and in the eyes of others -- relates to the brain. In
1996 Joseph LeDoux's The Emotional Brain presented a revelatory examination of
the biological bases of our emotions and memories. Now, in Synaptic Self,
LeDoux follows that pathbreaking work with a new book that tells a larger and
more profound story: how the brain, and particularly its synapses, creates and
maintains personality. Synapses, the spaces between neurons,
are the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and remember, and
also the means by which our most fundamental traits, preferences, and beliefs
are encoded. In short, they enable each of us to function as a single, integrated
individual -- a synaptic self -- from moment to moment, from year to year.
Challenging the common view that regards the self in terms of
self-awareness, LeDoux emphasizes the importance of both conscious and unconscious
processes in its construction. Rather than taking sides in the age-old debate
of whether nature or nurture is the determining factor in human development, LeDoux
also shows how both contribute to synaptic connectivity and personality. Nevertheless,
because memory plays such an important role in maintaining our personality over
time, much of Synaptic Self concerns the mechanisms by which synapses store
information, and how learning is coordinated across the many systems involved
in encoding a given experience. Ultimately, it is at the level of the synapse
that psychology, culture, and even spirituality meet, where memory joins with
genes to create the ineffable essence of personality. Provocative
and mind-expanding, Synaptic Self promises to become a major work on our
understanding of what it means to be human. Joseph
LeDoux, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University's Center
for Neural Sciences, is the author of The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious
Underpinnings of Emotional Life and the coauthor, with Michael Gazzaniga, of
The Integrated Mind. |
