Who's Who of the Brain: A Guide to Its Inhabitants, Where They Live and What They Do

by Kenneth Nunn

Meet the inhabitants of the brain in this reader-friendly introduction to what it is and how it works. Residents include Frederick Foresight (the frontal cortex), Mayor of Cephalton-upon-Ridge, who is the 'big picture' person responsible for planning and decision-making; Sage Seahorse (the hippocampus), who has an astonishing memory for times, names and places; Annie Almond (the amygdala), the community's alarm system who is always on the alert; and, many other fellow citizens. Each character is introduced and their appearance, role and key functions in the brain explained. The authors also show what happens when things go wrong in the brain, and illustrate the work using examples of classic clinical cases. This book provides an immediate and entertaining way for anyone to gain a basic understanding or to refresh their knowledge of the inside workings of the brain.

Genres: Neuroscience, Health

270 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2008

Reviews

[Cari Mayhew · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I’m about to progress in my studies shortly, I decided to refresh my memory of the brain, with this delightful paperback I bought many moons ago.

It’s a refreshing and easy-to-follow take on the various different parts of the brain, depicting each part as a charismatic person, explaining their characteristics, abilities, strengths, and connections.

There are illustrations throughout, mostly of parts of the brain, but also ones depicting the various characters.

It’s an excellent book for neuroscience newbies because it covers all of the main parts. There are 22 chapters, made up of an introductory chapter, 20 chapters describing individual or dual brain parts, and a final chapter to round off.

The bulk of the chapters begin with an introduction to the character, followed by sections on the locations, the connections, the functions, and what goes wrong when that particular brain part is compromised. There’s also a summary and up to 3 sources signposted for further reading.

I enjoyed reading it again, and my only critique is that the brain parts were too often referred to by their character name alone, rather than together with the brain part names. This could cause confusion for newbies who rush from one chapter to the next.

Overall, I have to recommend it, because no other book on brain anatomy and function could be this entertaining!

[Karen Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a lighthearted introduction to - or review of - the main parts of the brain and their key functions. If you've read a bit about the brain, most of this book will be familiar - I had already read a number of the books listed in the Further reading section of each chapter. Using cutesy character names like "Frederick Foresight" for the frontal lobes and "Rochelle Ringbond" for the cingulate gyrus didn't really help me remember the parts and functions that much better, I don't think, but it was an admirable effort. Highly stylized illustrations are used to help make the "characters" and information more visual and concrete, though I'm not that crazy about the illustrator's style - it's a little overdone, imho. The most useful parts of this book for me were the boxes that summarized the main functions of the brain part(s) featured in each chapter. I ended up referring back to these a lot to review and more deeply imprint their contents on my brain, especially when the functions overlapped from part to part, and when the names, often Latin, sounded similar to me and I needed to sort them out better. The glossary in the back is very substantial and is also a good review, and there's a good index. The book's whole intention is to keep things simple and accessible, so it's a handy reference, because you can usually get to the information fairly quickly, and you won't easily get lost or overwhelmed.