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My Plastic Brain: One Woman's Yearlong Journey to Discover If Science Can Improve Her Mind
Using herself as a guinea pig, a science journalist explores "neuroplasticity" to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works.
In books like THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, THE NO-SPEND YEAR, and THE YEAR OF YES, individuals have tried a specific experience and then reported on it, sharing the takeaway for the rest of us. In MY PLASTIC BRAIN, Caroline Williams spends a year exploring "neuroplasticity"--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections--to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works.
A science journalist with access to cutting edge experts and facilities, she volunteers herself as a test subject, challenging researchers to make real changes to the function and performance of her brain. She seeks to improve on everyday weaknesses such as her limited attention span and tendency to worry too much. She then branches out into more mysterious areas such as creativity and the perception of time.
From Boston to Oxford, England, and Philadelphia to Freiburg, Germany, Williams travels to labs or virtually meets with scientists and tries their techniques of mindfulness meditation, magnetic brain stimulation, sustained focus exercises, stress response retraining, and more. She shares her intimate journey with readers to discover what neuroscience can really do for us.
In books like THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, THE NO-SPEND YEAR, and THE YEAR OF YES, individuals have tried a specific experience and then reported on it, sharing the takeaway for the rest of us. In MY PLASTIC BRAIN, Caroline Williams spends a year exploring "neuroplasticity"--the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections--to find out whether she can make meaningful, lasting changes to the way her brain works.
A science journalist with access to cutting edge experts and facilities, she volunteers herself as a test subject, challenging researchers to make real changes to the function and performance of her brain. She seeks to improve on everyday weaknesses such as her limited attention span and tendency to worry too much. She then branches out into more mysterious areas such as creativity and the perception of time.
From Boston to Oxford, England, and Philadelphia to Freiburg, Germany, Williams travels to labs or virtually meets with scientists and tries their techniques of mindfulness meditation, magnetic brain stimulation, sustained focus exercises, stress response retraining, and more. She shares her intimate journey with readers to discover what neuroscience can really do for us.
278 pages, Hardcover
Published March 13, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 23, 2019
If Goodreads allowed me to give out half-stars, I'd be giving this 3 1/2 stars, which it seems I'm often doing with books from Prometheus, a publisher that specializes in books about science that are meant for a general audience, but are nonetheless a bit denser and smarter than most books of that type. I tend to want to like Prometheus books more than I actually end up liking them, with Caroline Williams' My Plastic Brain being no exception.
A record of a year in which Williams tried all kinds of experiments and submitted herself to a host of lab tests, to see whether it was possible to consciously and deliberately increase her ability to perform such specific brain skills as attention, creativity, confidence, spatial navigation, logical thinking and more, the results are pretty interesting, a combination of journalistic coverage of leading scientists in these fields with practical advice on what you can do at home to improve these skills yourself. Nonetheless, I found my attention for the writing to waver somewhere in the middle of each chapter, a little too much about Latin-named brain parts and various expensive machines tucked away in academic labs, so tended to read this book by just scanning the beginnings and endings of each section...again, much like I do with most Prometheus books. It comes with a limited recommendation to general audience members like myself, but it'll be a big hit among those who want to do a deep and detailed reading about all the latest science concerning the various sections of the brain and our attempts to deliberately manipulate those sections.
A record of a year in which Williams tried all kinds of experiments and submitted herself to a host of lab tests, to see whether it was possible to consciously and deliberately increase her ability to perform such specific brain skills as attention, creativity, confidence, spatial navigation, logical thinking and more, the results are pretty interesting, a combination of journalistic coverage of leading scientists in these fields with practical advice on what you can do at home to improve these skills yourself. Nonetheless, I found my attention for the writing to waver somewhere in the middle of each chapter, a little too much about Latin-named brain parts and various expensive machines tucked away in academic labs, so tended to read this book by just scanning the beginnings and endings of each section...again, much like I do with most Prometheus books. It comes with a limited recommendation to general audience members like myself, but it'll be a big hit among those who want to do a deep and detailed reading about all the latest science concerning the various sections of the brain and our attempts to deliberately manipulate those sections.
July 17, 2018
The major flaw of this book, and the reasons why I'm giving it three stars, is that, for a science book, it's very unscientific. It's no secret that you can't take one person's experiences and extrapolate that to an overall population; that's one of the very definitions of bad science. So if this book is to be taken seriously as a work of scientific literature, it fails at that. The author says near the end that she doesn't want it to be taken as a self-help book, but in a way that's precisely what this book is. Sure, I've read other science books that suggest techniques the reader can try, but those books have used scientific trials to back up those suggestions.
Still, I don't think this makes the book unworthy of a read. I guess what I wish is that instead of taking a personal angle on it, Williams had written instead about the overall attempts to use brain science to change people's behavior. I have a feeling this approach wasn't used precisely because it lacks the gimmicky element that would make a book like this seem to stand out from all the other books about neuroscience.
That aside, she does provide all kinds of interesting information about experiments being conducted and how various researchers around the world are using new breakthroughs in neuroscience to help us learn more not just about the brain but about its potential. The problem is the personal angle buries this at times. Yes, it is amusing and interesting to read about Williams's personal experiences as a subject of various experiments, but the dissection of whether or not the experiments worked for her personally in many ways buries the information about the experiments themselves. I understand that many of the things she tried were still in the midst of the experimental stage, so I do wonder what it will be like to read about the actual results of these studies as opposed to Williams's personal anecdotes about her experiences with them.
Probably the information that most interested me came at the end of the book, when she addresses some other experiments being conducted, experiments she herself wasn't able to experience. I think this is because I get a better picture of what the experiments are trying to determine than I did with those she describes in the body of the book, the details of which, as I've said, tend to get lost in her personal anecdotes.
At the end of the day, though, I question the bulk of these attempts to use technology to transform our brains. Though I'm not convinced she intended to, Williams herself calls this into question when she states that what has helped her the most is mindfulness meditation. Yes, she does say that the happy face clicking (which is supposed to help the brain bypass some forms of unconscious bias) helps as well, but what I drew from this book was what really made changes for her was learning how to be more conscious of her own feelings and thoughts. In this way, the book doesn't really tell the reader anything new, and the cynical part of me wonders if the benefits of things like yoga and meditation seem so wondrous to us Westerners because we've done such a stellar job of discounting the value of all science, literature, etc. that didn't originate in Europe and the U.S.
Still, I don't think this makes the book unworthy of a read. I guess what I wish is that instead of taking a personal angle on it, Williams had written instead about the overall attempts to use brain science to change people's behavior. I have a feeling this approach wasn't used precisely because it lacks the gimmicky element that would make a book like this seem to stand out from all the other books about neuroscience.
That aside, she does provide all kinds of interesting information about experiments being conducted and how various researchers around the world are using new breakthroughs in neuroscience to help us learn more not just about the brain but about its potential. The problem is the personal angle buries this at times. Yes, it is amusing and interesting to read about Williams's personal experiences as a subject of various experiments, but the dissection of whether or not the experiments worked for her personally in many ways buries the information about the experiments themselves. I understand that many of the things she tried were still in the midst of the experimental stage, so I do wonder what it will be like to read about the actual results of these studies as opposed to Williams's personal anecdotes about her experiences with them.
Probably the information that most interested me came at the end of the book, when she addresses some other experiments being conducted, experiments she herself wasn't able to experience. I think this is because I get a better picture of what the experiments are trying to determine than I did with those she describes in the body of the book, the details of which, as I've said, tend to get lost in her personal anecdotes.
At the end of the day, though, I question the bulk of these attempts to use technology to transform our brains. Though I'm not convinced she intended to, Williams herself calls this into question when she states that what has helped her the most is mindfulness meditation. Yes, she does say that the happy face clicking (which is supposed to help the brain bypass some forms of unconscious bias) helps as well, but what I drew from this book was what really made changes for her was learning how to be more conscious of her own feelings and thoughts. In this way, the book doesn't really tell the reader anything new, and the cynical part of me wonders if the benefits of things like yoga and meditation seem so wondrous to us Westerners because we've done such a stellar job of discounting the value of all science, literature, etc. that didn't originate in Europe and the U.S.
August 6, 2018
Couldn't wrap my head around this ... not that it was too technical, but was too tedious and seemed too subjective; and too much into the weeds without any summary or synopsis for each chapter, or for the book as a whole, for that matter. But maybe the problem is me and not the author: perhaps my own aging brain is turning into a very gooey form of plastic.
February 20, 2023
The book says more about the science of changing your brain than her actual life story. I don’t know I didn’t feel close to the writer and her journey. But in all, is a good book just not what I was looking for.
But as a thing to remember, anxiety is the root of all evil. The good part is that you can beat it all by yourself.
But as a thing to remember, anxiety is the root of all evil. The good part is that you can beat it all by yourself.
March 13, 2018
Uptodate and well written, my problem is that I studied already many of the things that the author explains so it was not a super interesting book to me, but it's my fault.
Aggiornato e ben scritto, l'unico problema é che io ho giá studiato molte delle cose che l'autrice si da tanta pena per spiegare, cosí non é che sia stato proprio interessantissimo per me, ma é colpa mia.
THANKS TO EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!
Aggiornato e ben scritto, l'unico problema é che io ho giá studiato molte delle cose che l'autrice si da tanta pena per spiegare, cosí non é che sia stato proprio interessantissimo per me, ma é colpa mia.
THANKS TO EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!
October 3, 2018
I am fascinated by how the brain works, especially around the concepts of perception and plasticity. Perception because what we believe is reality is a construct generated within the brain itself. That is really cool, as it explains all kinds of things (from why you didn't see something the first time through or why you can find faces in anything). Plasticity because it means we can continually improve our brains, even us older farts.
This book is short and essentially a log of what the author did to improve a set of key, for her, characteristics. She talks to a range of researchers, many of whom do not agree, which is great. Why? The brain is hugely complex and research is only beginning to understand the underlying mechanisms. No one has all the answers and theories are being tossed yearly.
The author is very upfront about some of her own flaws. She doesn't hold anything back, so we get a good sense of how each proposed training system improves (or not) her brain. Some of it was interesting. Some wasn't. I knew some of the ideas. As a view into the world of brain training, it is pretty good. If you have read other books on the topic, it becomes a single person's journey through research labs and self experimentation.
Some of the cool parts were the researchers at the VA using TMS (trans-cranial magnetic stimulation) to treat PTSD patients. I know a doctor in the SF Bay Area who's practice now focuses on using TMS to treat depression and other brain issues. Amazing things that can be done for people without drugs or invasive surgery. Great to see it being used with the VA.
The part about brain training programs found online or in books are mainly bunk is very true. The brain operates in clusters, so if you try to work just one area, nothing really happens for day-to-day behavior.
One of the themes in the book is the use of mediation to calm ones mind. This came up in chapter after chapter. It brings the author both mindfulness & mindlessness. Regular exercise, too. One thing missing is the use of naps. Musicians take regular naps to lock in what they practice. Brains need rest to work at their best, being focused on a task or wandering to be a fountain of ideas.
This book is short and essentially a log of what the author did to improve a set of key, for her, characteristics. She talks to a range of researchers, many of whom do not agree, which is great. Why? The brain is hugely complex and research is only beginning to understand the underlying mechanisms. No one has all the answers and theories are being tossed yearly.
The author is very upfront about some of her own flaws. She doesn't hold anything back, so we get a good sense of how each proposed training system improves (or not) her brain. Some of it was interesting. Some wasn't. I knew some of the ideas. As a view into the world of brain training, it is pretty good. If you have read other books on the topic, it becomes a single person's journey through research labs and self experimentation.
Some of the cool parts were the researchers at the VA using TMS (trans-cranial magnetic stimulation) to treat PTSD patients. I know a doctor in the SF Bay Area who's practice now focuses on using TMS to treat depression and other brain issues. Amazing things that can be done for people without drugs or invasive surgery. Great to see it being used with the VA.
The part about brain training programs found online or in books are mainly bunk is very true. The brain operates in clusters, so if you try to work just one area, nothing really happens for day-to-day behavior.
One of the themes in the book is the use of mediation to calm ones mind. This came up in chapter after chapter. It brings the author both mindfulness & mindlessness. Regular exercise, too. One thing missing is the use of naps. Musicians take regular naps to lock in what they practice. Brains need rest to work at their best, being focused on a task or wandering to be a fountain of ideas.
September 16, 2018
The topic of neuroplasticity has engendered growing interest in the past decade. If this phenomenon does actually occur, questions abound regarding potential applications and development.
Caroline Williams asked if a healthy brain can "change". Can long-standing thought processes, ingrained habits, personal feelings and perspectives benefit from applying scientific findings regarding altering internal processes of one's mind.
Having completed several graduate courses in cognitive disorders and various rehabilitative strategies have led me to question the whole concept of neuroplasticity. How do therapies remediate the damaged brain? How does the brain physically change during a recovery process? Do MRIs of the brain show where a physical change has occurred following therapy? Do EEGs quantify an altered thought process during recovery? I don't know and haven't come across information to that affect. It may be out there but I don't have access to a medical database.
I enjoyed reading Ms. Williams book. Some may find her presentation to be too lighthearted or flippant. I didn't. She asked a series of questions and explored those topics with researchers across the continent. The book offered breadth and insight to this most interesting topic.
Caroline Williams asked if a healthy brain can "change". Can long-standing thought processes, ingrained habits, personal feelings and perspectives benefit from applying scientific findings regarding altering internal processes of one's mind.
Having completed several graduate courses in cognitive disorders and various rehabilitative strategies have led me to question the whole concept of neuroplasticity. How do therapies remediate the damaged brain? How does the brain physically change during a recovery process? Do MRIs of the brain show where a physical change has occurred following therapy? Do EEGs quantify an altered thought process during recovery? I don't know and haven't come across information to that affect. It may be out there but I don't have access to a medical database.
I enjoyed reading Ms. Williams book. Some may find her presentation to be too lighthearted or flippant. I didn't. She asked a series of questions and explored those topics with researchers across the continent. The book offered breadth and insight to this most interesting topic.
December 18, 2022
Very interesting premise and interesting read -- borderline 4-stars. As the subtitle says, the author sets out on a one-year quest to see if she can do anything to improve her mind. She visits and talks with scientists around the US (and UK), undertakes brain testing, and enrolls in various "brain'building" practices.
As well as being interesting, the book is full of information about the mind and how it works ... or doesn't. However, in the course of her narrative, every theory has a counter-theory, and every counter-theory has a counter. Several times I was either confused or ready to throw up my hands in futility (as it sounded like the author was, as well). A lot of what she learns in her quest is what doesn't work -- which was a little frustrating at times. She does, finally, come up with a few broad conclusions -- but don't expect to come out of this book with any "silver bullets" to make you smarter.
As well as being interesting, the book is full of information about the mind and how it works ... or doesn't. However, in the course of her narrative, every theory has a counter-theory, and every counter-theory has a counter. Several times I was either confused or ready to throw up my hands in futility (as it sounded like the author was, as well). A lot of what she learns in her quest is what doesn't work -- which was a little frustrating at times. She does, finally, come up with a few broad conclusions -- but don't expect to come out of this book with any "silver bullets" to make you smarter.
July 21, 2019
That took a while! It's an entertaining and readable book by a science writer examining how the brain functions in many areas and how we're learning to measure/monitor and change that functioning. I'm teaching neuropsychology now, and I'm looking for different ways to explain and discuss the brain-behavior relationship. Our knowledge is changing rapidly due to advances in technology especially brain imaging, and my psychology students are probably going to have a very different concept than I was taught, of what's possible in terms of changing our behavior.
July 21, 2018
I love learning more about the Brain and how it works. With all the new technologies seeing what affect we can now have was great. The main takeaway of just being more aware and finding the right mindset was great and something to remember when things seem overwhelming.
December 13, 2021
As always enjoy reading about plasticity. Tho do have to say, this author writes a bit like a rather cavalier readers digest.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews