He came to believe that people\u2019s mental faculties were localized within specific brain regions. And because these regions molded the shape of people\u2019s skulls, a trained eye could divinate a person\u2019s capabilities for love, violence, greed, intelligence, and other traits simply by examining their cranial bumps and recessions.<\/p>\n
As you\u2019ve probably guessed, Gall\u2019s hypotheses provided the basis for phrenology \u2014 though Gall never used that term, preferring the more lexically accurate but less marketable \u201ccranioscopy.\u201d Today, researchers have rejected cranioscopy for its lack of empirical rigor, and the phrenology crazes that followed Gall\u2019s death \u2014 spearheaded by grifters like the Fowler Brothers<\/a> \u2014 are recognized as pseudoscientific fads.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s not be too hard on the old Gall. The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, and his research represents some of the earliest attempts to understand it scientifically. In the 200 years since, neuroscientists have learned a lot about the brain\u2019s relationship with intelligence and personality, as well as how its unique regions play both specialized and coordinated roles in bodily and cognitive functions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet many mysteries remain, and plenty of myths<\/a> and pseudoscientific claims surrounding the brain are still out there \u2014 many based on either misunderstandings of the empirical data or the misleading promises of hucksters.<\/p>\n To help us learn more and demystify the brain a bit, we asked Rachel Barr, a neuroscientist and the author of How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend<\/a>, to recommend some books on the subject. She suggested the following five, written by some of the top experts and thinkers in her field.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably heard the myth that people who favor thinking with their brain\u2019s left hemisphere are more analytical, whereas right-brained people are more creative and thoughtful. While it is true that some brain functions are primarily the domain of one hemisphere or the other, there\u2019s no substantial evidence that individuals favor one side of the brain, and researchers now know that traits such as creativity are whole-brain activities.<\/p>\n However, this doesn\u2019t mean the brain\u2019s two halves always play the close-and-cozy couple.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the 1970s, researchers Roger Sperry, Joseph Bogen, and Michael Gazzaniga began what became known as the \u201csplit-brain studies<\/a>.\u201d These studies focused on patients who had undergone callosotomies \u2014 surgical procedures that require cutting the corpus callosum, the area of the brain that connects the left and right hemispheres, usually as a treatment for severe seizures.<\/p>\n What they found by examining these patients was astonishing. When unable to communicate, the two hemispheres processed information and made decisions independently. For instance, in one experiment, a patient would be shown two pictures: one only visible to the left eye and one only visible to the right. When asked to draw and describe what they saw, the patient would sketch the image seen by their left eye, but their explanation would be for the image seen by their right.<\/p>\n These findings led some neuroscientists to propose what is called the \u201csplit consciousness\u201d hypothesis, the idea that the brain houses two or more conscious agents<\/a>. The findings also revealed cognitive functions in which the brain\u2019s hemispheres actually do specialize, such as language (left) and facial recognition (right).<\/p>\n Gazzaniga\u2019s 2015 book, Tales from Both Sides of the Brain<\/a>, is one part memoir, one part review of this groundbreaking research.<\/p>\n \u201cFew lab studies have rewritten philosophy, but Gazzaniga\u2019s split-brain experiments did,\u201d Barr tells us. \u201cThey showed that inside a single skull, two minds can argue over the same world. It\u2019s one of the coolest experiments in neuroscience history!\u201d<\/p>\n How do you experience thought? Do you think in words narrated by a voice in your head? Are your thoughts more like a painting, and if so, would you describe them as naturalistic, minimalist, or abstract? And even if these metaphors help you explain the experience of your thoughts, do they represent the actual stuff of thought?<\/p>\n In her 2019 book, Mind in Motion<\/a>, psychologist Barbara Tversky tackles these heady questions to reveal an often overlooked aspect of thinking: spatial cognition.<\/p>\n Spatial cognition refers to the skills we use to process information about our environments in order to navigate or act within them. The last time you unfurled a mental map of your hometown, built a tower out of Lego bricks with your nephew, or pulled off a brilliant strategy to win a game of Settlers of Catan, you used spatial cognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, for Tversky, this isn\u2019t just some overlooked aspect of thought. It\u2019s a foundational one. Our brains are one part of an entire nervous system that weaves throughout our bodies. As we experience the world through our actions and movement, these bodily interactions create perceptions that form the basis of our abstract thoughts. Far from swimming alone in the ocean of our skulls, thoughts evolve in the entire ecosystem of us being us.<\/p>\n \u201cMind in Motion is the reminder that cognition has a body,\u201d Barr says. \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever solved a problem by moving your hands or drawing boxes, you\u2019re squarely in its thesis. It\u2019s also one of the few neuroscience books that doesn\u2019t feel allergic to lived life.\u201d<\/p>\n Few problems in philosophy are as sticky as the problem of consciousness. Despite some of history\u2019s best thinkers probing the question for centuries, we still aren\u2019t sure whether people experience consciousness in the same way, how self-aware animals are, or how subjective experiences arise from mere sparks between neurons. For that matter, is a biological brain even necessary for consciousness to emerge?<\/p>\n In this 2019 book<\/a>, writer Annaka Harris offers a consciousness primer. The book introduces readers to the mysteries surrounding consciousness and explores the field\u2019s central ideas from both a scientific and philosophical perspective. Harris\u2019s goal is less to stake a claim in the ongoing debate \u2014 though she certainly has her theories<\/a> \u2014 but to help get readers up-to-speed and provide them a sense of how things may evolve in the near future with the advent of technologies like AI.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a beginner looking for answers, this book is essential reading \u2014 because it dares not to give you any,\u201d Barr says. \u201cHarris leaves the hard questions open, but does so without leaving you begging for a point in a fog of Socratic hedging. It\u2019s a clear, unpretentious tour of consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds, \u201cAt under 150 pages, Conscious is over before you can get comfortable. It works because it doesn\u2019t pretend to solve the mystery. Harris steps back, leaving the hard questions open as she pulls them into sharper focus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Brain from Inside Out opens hard and stays that way. This is brutalist neuroscience, Buzs\u00e1ki does not coddle,\u201d Barr says. \u201cWhat you get is a first principles education that sharpens your intuitions about brain function and brain science.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s one hell of a blurb, but neuroscientist Gy\u00f6rgy Buzs\u00e1ki\u2019s 2019 book<\/a> has earned it. In the book, Buzs\u00e1ki explores the different frameworks for understanding the brain in neuroscience. The most prominent, known as the \u201coutside-in framework,\u201d views the brain\u2019s complexity as growing as we take in more information about the world. This information forms the basis of learning and informs our actions, decisions, and observations.<\/p>\n However, Buzs\u00e1ki argues the outside-in framework has grown stagnant and proposes an \u201cinside-out\u201d approach instead. This framework views the brain\u2019s complexity as self-organized, the result of a network of preformed patterns. These patterns initially produce nonsense, but as we interact with our environment through our actions, they begin to calibrate and derive meaning through outcomes.<\/p>\n Buzs\u00e1ki wants his readers to understand the brain not as something that processes information but as a creator of it.<\/p>\n \u201cBuzs\u00e1ki is hard-nosed in a way I\u2019m not,\u201d Barr adds. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t sentimentalise the brain; he doesn\u2019t need it to mean anything. His science writing is a kind of yang to my yin. I read it the way a musician runs scales. Where Buzs\u00e1ki clears the myths away, I try to build them back, but with a disciplined re-mythologising that is biologically faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n Returning to Gall, his theory was ultimately proven to be a misstep, but he did advance our knowledge of the brain in some ways. For instance, he is credited with identifying the functional differences between gray and white brain matter, realizing the brain\u2019s connection to the central nervous system, and correctly identifying the brain as the \u201corgan of the soul<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s important because before the Enlightenment, few people recognized even the brainy basics. A few ancient Greek thinkers<\/a>, such as Alcmaeon of Croton, appreciated some of the brain\u2019s more fundamental functions. But for centuries, most physicians followed Aristotle\u2019s \u201ccardiocentric<\/a>\u201d view that the heart housed intelligence and consciousness while the brain simply cooled the blood.<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/717QqnGr9jL._SL1500_.jpg\")
<\/a>Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/81N7Oum7dL._SL1500_.jpg\")
<\/a>Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought<\/p>\n![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/91SolsR9oQL._SL1500_.jpg\")
<\/a>Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/71oVQQkqsxL._SL1500_.jpg\")
<\/a>The Brain from Inside Out\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/91GLxgHKwkL._SL1500_.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience<\/p>\n