A01=Tobias Rees
adult brain
Author_Tobias Rees
brain research
brain science
Category=JHM
cellular plasticity of the brain
central nervous system
developmental neurobiology
embryogenetic processes in the adult brain
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
evolution
history of brain science
history of medicine
human brain
lifelong development
mature brain development
medical anthropology
nervous system
neurobiology
neurology
neuronal research
neuroplasticity
neuroscience research
plasticity of human brain
Product details
- ISBN 9780520288126
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 May 2016
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Throughout the twentieth century, neuronal researchers knew the adult human brain to be a thoroughly fixed and immutable cellular structure, devoid of any developmental potential. Plastic Reason is a study of the efforts of a few Parisian neurobiologists to overturn this rigid conception of the central nervous system by showing that basic embryogenetic processes - most spectacularly the emergence of new cellular tissue in the form of new neurons, axons, dendrites, and synapses - continue in the mature brain. Furthermore, these researchers sought to demonstrate that the new tissues are still unspecific and hence literally plastic, and that this cellular plasticity is constitutive of the possibility of the human. Plastic Reason, grounded in years of fieldwork and historical research, is an anthropologist's account of what has arguably been one of the most sweeping events in the history of brain research-the highly contested effort to consider the adult brain in embryogenetic terms. A careful analysis of the disproving of an established truth, it reveals the turmoil that such a disruption brings about and the emergence of new possibilities of thinking and knowing.
Tobias Rees is Associate Professor of Anthropology with a dual appointment in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University.
