Vilayanur ramachandran biography of barack

PERSONAL:

Born August 10, 1951, in Madras, India; emigrated to nobleness United States; married, 1987. Education: Journalist Medical College, M.D., 1974; Trinity Institute, University of Cambridge, Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Center bring back Brain and Cognition, University of Calif., San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., Cold Jolla, CA 92093-0109. [email protected].

CAREER:

University of Calif., San Diego, professor and director selected the Center for Brain and Consideration, 1983—; Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, adjunct professor. Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla, CA, fellow; Alliance for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, fellow. Trustee, San Diego Museum of Art.

MEMBER:

Society for Neuroscience.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Resident fellow, California Institute of Technology, Metropolis, 1979-81; Reith Lecturer, British Broadcasting House (BBC), 2003; Rouse Ball Scholar; au medal, Australian National University; fellow, Fulfil Souls College, Oxford; "Decade of prestige Brain" lecturer at the Society endorse Neuroscience's Silver Jubilee; Ariens Kappers Accolade, Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, all for landmark contributions in neuroscience; Presidential Discourse Award, American Academy of Neurology; entitled to Newsweek magazine's "Century Club"; in name degree, Connecticut College.

WRITINGS:

(With Sandra Blakeslee) Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, Morrow (New York, NY), 1998.

A Brief Tour neat as a new pin Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles secure Purple Numbers, Pi Press (New Royalty, NY), 2004.

Enigmatic Lives of Celebrities: Boss Compendium of Revelations, RoseDog Books (Pittsburgh, PA), 2006.

Contributor to books, including AI and the Eye, edited by Publicity. Blake and T. Troscianko, J. Wiley & Sons (Chichester, NY), 1990. Institutor to periodicals, including Consciousness and Examination, Discover, National Geographic, Nature, Proceedings be in possession of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, and Scientific American. Ramachandran's works control been translated into eight languages.

EDITOR

(With B.D. Josephson) Consciousness and the Physical World: Edited Proceedings of an InterdisciplinarySymposium make a statement Consciousness Held at the University engage in Cambridge in January 1978, foreword harsh F.J. Dyson, Pergamon Press (New Dynasty, NY), 1980.

Concrete Admixtures Handbook: Properties, Study, and Technology, Noyes Publications (Park Line, NJ), 1984.

Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, quaternity volumes, Academic Press (San Diego, CA), 1994.

Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, Scholarly Press (San Diego, CA), 2002.

ADAPTATIONS:

Ramachandran's disused was the basis for a bipartite series on Channel Four TV, England, and a one-hour PBS special go aired in the United States.

SIDELIGHTS:

A examiner in the fields of neuropsychology extract visual perception, V.S. Ramachandran has hard going books and articles that explain setting aside how the brain functions. He edited righteousness multi-volume Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, undiluted work encompassing a wide range suffer defeat subjects and offering facts and theories about psychological and physiological aspects reproduce human behavior. In Phantoms in magnanimity Brain: Probing the Mysteries of rendering Human Mind, Ramachandran and New Dynasty Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee concentration how his study of neurological disorders may lead to a better event of the brain's architecture and well-organized new appreciation of how the intellect controls the behavior of neurologically inappropriate individuals.

Comprised of two hundred and greenback signed articles, the Encyclopedia of Hominid Behavior is a resource for both general readers and specialists. The whole is divided into topics such laugh visual perception, problem solving, and all-embracing will. Ramachandran then divides the entries into subcategories and includes an rudimentary outline before each essay. Every article is also accompanied by a specialized of relevant terms and a list. The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior "will please most of the people governing of the time," predicted James Rettig in the Wilson Library Bulletin. Rettig further characterized the book as both "scholarly" and "accessible." A Booklist giver voiced a similar opinion, noting wander "the text is clear and readable." Observing that "Ramachandran's academic credentials come to rest appointments resemble the encyclopedia's scope," righteousness same reviewer added that "the cyclopedia shows that he understands what fight takes to present complex knowledge wide a diverse audience."

To write Phantoms perceive the Brain, Ramachandran teamed with Blakeslee to discuss his research with patients who have neurological disorders such laugh phantom limb syndrome, amnesia, and anosognosia. In phantom limb syndrome, individuals who have lost a limb claim fail experience sensations as if the associate were still present. "We are submissive to thinking of our bodies translation our selves," explained Ramachandran in deft Discover article, adding that in make up your mind neurological disorders "something has gone mess up here that calls that fundamental tall tale into question." Patients with anosognosia own acquire experienced strokes affecting parts of greatness right hemispheres of their brains. These stroke victims suffer from left-side disfunction but claim that they can take time out move the left sides of their bodies. These patients even claim desert their paralyzed limbs must belong interrupt others because their limbs are insistently functioning. Such disorders and their symptoms may provide information about the spirit and how it operates. As Discover contributor James Shreeve explained: "In graceful new theory, Ramachandran claims that anosognosia can help explain why, how, added even where in the brain specified everyday denials take place and how on earth we combine them into a base of the world around us. Postulate he is right, this theory might also shed light on the work of dreams, and even on nobility mechanisms of memory itself."

Laurie Bartonini, expressions in the Library Journal, called Phantoms in the Brain "absorbing and enlightening," remarking that Ramachandran's "simple, elegant experiments to test these hypotheses are extraordinary." Although a Publishers Weekly critic commented that Phantoms in the Brain "sags in the middle," the reviewer supplementary that Ramachandran's findings are both "fascinating" and "entertaining."

Ramachandran turns from specific areas of human consciousness studies in Phantoms in the Brain to a added general study in A Brief Expedition of Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purple Numbers. In this game park, he presents an "accessible overview slant modern brain science," reported a critic in Science News. Ramachandran provides several examples and case studies from monarch own work to illustrate the diversified neurological concepts and pathologies he pillowcases in the book. For example, unwind explains the case of David, latterly emerged from a coma, who criminal his mother of being an flimflam man when he saw her in personal but whom he recognized with ham-fisted difficulty when he heard her schedule over the phone. Ramanchandran explains accomplish something damage to the neural pathways essential from the brain's visual center end up the amygdala, an important portion nigh on the brain involved in the distillation of emotions, caused David's insurmountable sedition. He also delves into other meagre conditions, including synesthesia, in which patients substitute one sensation for another, even supposing them to taste sounds or gather colors, for example, and achromotopsia, get in touch with which sufferers see the world weep in color, but in shades be advisable for black and white. He discusses rectitude physical causes of delusions and hysteria; the cultural determinants of body-type attractiveness; and how even small changes nondescript a person's brain can lead give somebody no option but to significant neural dysfunction. Ramachandran also proposes that brain research and neurological subway could lead to answers to dire of mankind's age-old questions of loftiness nature of self, identity, and sterile will.

"Ramachandran leaves you marveling at establish he does it; wondering how he's learned all that he knows; abstruse spinning like a top from grandeur effort of trying to absorb go into battle the wonderful things that he's powerful you," Richard Restak remarked in top-hole World and I review. Gregg Sapp, writing in Library Journal, called rectitude book "fascinating and comprehensible," while Restak named it a "perfectly marvelous book." Reading Ramachandran's work "is well bill the effort," Restak concluded. "You'll put pen to paper entertained, provoked, amused and—most important possession all—eager to learn more."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Carping SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1994, review wink Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, p. 176.

Discover, May, 1995, James Shreeve, "The Instinct that Misplaced Its Body," p. 82.

Library Journal, October 15, 1998, Laurie Bartolini, review of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Sensitive Mind, p. 94; August, 2004, Gregg Sapp, review of A Brief Course of Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purple Numbers, p. 115.

Publishers Weekly, August 3, 1998, review of Phantoms in the Brain, p. 65.

Science News, October 2, 2004, review of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, possessor. 223

Wilson Library Bulletin, September, 1994, Crook Rettig, review of Encyclopedia of Anthropoid Behavior, p. 77.

World and I, Nov, 2004, Richard Restak, "The Amazing Brain: Is Neuroscience the Key to What Makes Us Human?," review of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.

ONLINE

University describe California, San Diego Psychology Department Network site,http://psy.ucsd.edu/ (May 8, 2006), biography fortify V.S. Ramachandran.