Synaptic Self : How Our Brains Become Who We Are

In 1996 Joseph LeDoux's The Emotional Brainpresented a revelatory examination of the biological bases of our emotions and memories. Now, the world-renowned expert on the brain has produced with a groundbreaking work that tells a more profound story: how the little spaces between the neurons-the brain's synapses--are the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and remember. Synapses encode the essence of personality, enabling each of us to function as a distinctive, integrated individual from moment to moment. Exploring the functioning of memory, the synaptic basis of mental illness and drug addiction, and the mechanism of self-awareness, Synaptic Selfis a provocative and mind-expanding work that is destined to become a classic.

Joseph LeDoux is Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University's Center for Neural Sciences. He is the author of The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life and coauthor (with Michael Gazzaniga) of The Integrated Mind.

Synaptic Self Acknowledgments

1. The Big One

2. Seeking The Self

3. The Most Unaccountable Of Machinery

4. Building The Brain

5. Adventures In Time

6. Small Change

7. The Mental Trilogy

8. The Emotional Brain Revisited

9. The Lost World

10. Synaptic Sickness

11. Who Are You?

Notes
Works Cited
Index