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The Story of the Brain in 10½ Cells
There are more than 100 billion brain cells in our heads, and every single one represents a fragment of thought and feeling. Each cell possesses a mysterious beauty, with branching, intricate patterns like shattered glass. Richard Wingate has been scrutinising them for decades, yet he is still gripped by the myriad of forms when he looks down the microscope.
With absorbing lyricism and clarity, Wingate shows how each type of cell possesses its own personality and history, illustrating a milestone of scientific discovery and illuminating the stories of pioneering scientists like Santiago Ramon y Cajal and Francis Crick, and capturing their own fascinating shapes and patterns.
Discover the ethereal world of the brain with this elegant little book - and find out how we all think and feel.
With absorbing lyricism and clarity, Wingate shows how each type of cell possesses its own personality and history, illustrating a milestone of scientific discovery and illuminating the stories of pioneering scientists like Santiago Ramon y Cajal and Francis Crick, and capturing their own fascinating shapes and patterns.
Discover the ethereal world of the brain with this elegant little book - and find out how we all think and feel.
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 4, 2023
16 people are currently reading
166 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 7, 2023
"...The mind is our story corner, where the pages are turned, and turned into urges and desires and fears. Stories allow us to order our predictions and expectations; what is going to be easy, difficult, rewarding, painful, joyous. The affordances of the world are a story told to us by the brain."
August 20, 2024
So glad I stumbled upon this book!
An insightful read. It gives us a short, but concise history guide of neuroscience, with sprinkles of author‘s own experiences as both student and researcher.
I‘d say this is suited more for the people in the actual study field, but as a person that‘s an IT student and who loves to always acquire new knowledge/information from various disciplines, I can only say that if You have the time - give this book a chance!🍀
An insightful read. It gives us a short, but concise history guide of neuroscience, with sprinkles of author‘s own experiences as both student and researcher.
I‘d say this is suited more for the people in the actual study field, but as a person that‘s an IT student and who loves to always acquire new knowledge/information from various disciplines, I can only say that if You have the time - give this book a chance!🍀
December 17, 2023
Loved this short book that is a history of neuroscience through 10 1/2 brain cells with sections of memoir about the authors own research and time as a student. This book is able to capture the wonder of studying the brain really well, reads like a love letter to observing and drawing the neurons and values imagination as a key ingredient in the scientific method.
The cells:
1) Purkinje’s Cell (very flat cell that connects Cerebellum layers, also the cell where Golgi saw dendrites collecting nutrients and joined the dots and Cajal saw dendrites collecting information and left the crucial and defining gap)
2)Retinal Ganglion Cell (mosaic of these cells provides a sampling of the visual world across retina, also how the brain makes up what it does not know and fills in gaps)
3)Astrocytes (wrap around capillaries in brain and bridge blood and cerebral spinal fluid, which collects the debris of our neurons in order to refresg during sleep where waste is carried away in the blood)
4)The Sensory Cell (the mesencephalic trigeminal primary sensory neuron sits inside the brain: the only adult sensory neuron in vertebrates to do so, also the evolutionary explanation for how this happend is not yet conclusive)
5)T cell in the leech nerve cord (the value of drawing, the discovery that the brain consists of individual neurons and imagination vs understanding vs narrative)
6)An Idealised Drawing of A Brain Cell (Lewellys Barker in his 1897 book, a drawing of a brain cell answers a research question. Without a question to ask, the neuron drawing can happily rest in its state of fried eggs and sausages)
7)The Betz Cell (a pyramidal neuron in layer V of the cerebral cortex, goes into basal ganglia and thalamus and then through brainstem to activate the neurons in the spinal cord that control movement)
8)The Reticulthalic Cell (sits at surface of thalamis, tipped with dense mesh of inhibitory axon terminals inspired theories about conciousness and Francis Crick in neuroscience)
9)The Scheinel cell (its location in the hindbrain, how its stacks like poker chips and how this inspired McCulloch and Pitts to come up with the calculus that is the theoretical basis for an artificial brain)
10)The Motor Neuron
1/2)The Giant Common Squid Axon that gave a recording of an electric potential in 1909
The cells:
1) Purkinje’s Cell (very flat cell that connects Cerebellum layers, also the cell where Golgi saw dendrites collecting nutrients and joined the dots and Cajal saw dendrites collecting information and left the crucial and defining gap)
2)Retinal Ganglion Cell (mosaic of these cells provides a sampling of the visual world across retina, also how the brain makes up what it does not know and fills in gaps)
3)Astrocytes (wrap around capillaries in brain and bridge blood and cerebral spinal fluid, which collects the debris of our neurons in order to refresg during sleep where waste is carried away in the blood)
4)The Sensory Cell (the mesencephalic trigeminal primary sensory neuron sits inside the brain: the only adult sensory neuron in vertebrates to do so, also the evolutionary explanation for how this happend is not yet conclusive)
5)T cell in the leech nerve cord (the value of drawing, the discovery that the brain consists of individual neurons and imagination vs understanding vs narrative)
6)An Idealised Drawing of A Brain Cell (Lewellys Barker in his 1897 book, a drawing of a brain cell answers a research question. Without a question to ask, the neuron drawing can happily rest in its state of fried eggs and sausages)
7)The Betz Cell (a pyramidal neuron in layer V of the cerebral cortex, goes into basal ganglia and thalamus and then through brainstem to activate the neurons in the spinal cord that control movement)
8)The Reticulthalic Cell (sits at surface of thalamis, tipped with dense mesh of inhibitory axon terminals inspired theories about conciousness and Francis Crick in neuroscience)
9)The Scheinel cell (its location in the hindbrain, how its stacks like poker chips and how this inspired McCulloch and Pitts to come up with the calculus that is the theoretical basis for an artificial brain)
10)The Motor Neuron
1/2)The Giant Common Squid Axon that gave a recording of an electric potential in 1909
July 27, 2023
TLDR: I would recommend this book to people with some previous background in neuroscience, either educationally or through personal reading.
Certain passages are rather detail-heavy and the author sometimes meanders into tangents which are interesting to a fellow neuroscience enthusiast, but might bore a general popular science reader.
The book provides a fun history of neuroscience at the level of single cells, with some quaint stories of famous names in the field sprinkled in occasionally.
Overall it was a worthwhile read for me (a cognitive neuroscience student) but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it widely, unlike other brain-related books which I view as universal must-reads, such as Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Behave’.
Certain passages are rather detail-heavy and the author sometimes meanders into tangents which are interesting to a fellow neuroscience enthusiast, but might bore a general popular science reader.
The book provides a fun history of neuroscience at the level of single cells, with some quaint stories of famous names in the field sprinkled in occasionally.
Overall it was a worthwhile read for me (a cognitive neuroscience student) but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it widely, unlike other brain-related books which I view as universal must-reads, such as Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Behave’.
January 7, 2024
I would have given 2.5 if I could have. There are sections of the book that are very interesting and pulled me in to the history of neurobiology and the study of the brain. But then he would interject something that felt like a non sequitur and would have me going back to what I just read to see what I missed. The read was worth the fascinating historical info, which has directed me toward other books about neuroscience that have now been added to my To Read list. That being said, I would not jump to pick up something by the same author, published by the same company (I think a different editor could have made this a better read).
June 30, 2025
Wingate’s writing is romantic. His book is not simply a description of ten and a half brain cells, it is a journey through history, art, poetry, and philosophy.
Cleverly, through these ten and a half cells, he traces the history of brain research, showing how the lives and ideas of early scientists - now considered pioneers - are deeply interconnected and foundational to our understanding of the brain today. In breathtaking detail, Wingate describes his own experiences in the lab. We feel the tension as he waits by his microscope, breath held, hoping to see the stain illuminate the hidden structures of a single neuron. When it finally does, we see it too - nature’s trees, as he often calls them, delicate and branching and impossibly intricate.
His writing is not just poetic, it is human. Relatable. I was invested.
If this book had only been filled with scientific jargon (and there are sections that definitely took a few Google searches to understand), I wouldn’t have been so interested. But Wingate doesn’t let science stand alone. I probably won’t remember every cell or term, but that’s not what matters. What I will remember is how this book made the brain feel so alive.
For me, going through the history of major figures which shaped our understanding of research today was incredible. Crick, who abandoned physics for biology, and with the help of others discovered the structure of DNA - only to later work in neuroscience. Nansen’s spontaneity and fast movement through fields of science after deciding that yes! nerve cells did have gaps between them (which is so obvious now), left me in awe. Imagine if these individuals had chosen linear paths, where would research be today? Would we have known so much? What would we know now? Then there’s contrast between Ramon y Cajal and Golgi’s ideas which ironically won a joint Nobel prize mirrored later with Nansen and Apathy's disagreement. This cyclical nature of life, the feuds, the conclusions made were almost amusing. The dedication of each individual, the branching into each field, the fates between the scientists was fascinating. It reminded me just how complex and human the pursuit of science really is.
The author's own musings made parts of this book feel dreamy, exploring cells through an objective lens but also a subjective one. Because each drawing is always slightly different, depending on perspective, it raises questions: what shapes our imagination? It teeters on the edge of asking what constitutes our soul.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating. Perhaps I’m biased. But I kept thinking of that quote from Dead Poets Society, you know the one:
“And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Because I truly feel Wingate brings all of those things together in this story.
This book is an amalgamation of not only what makes up our brains, but also of the little ghosts which live inside of us: the stories which carry us, stories left forgotten, stories which are too deeply ingrained to be forgotten. Fittingly, it is the story of our ‘storytelling brains’.
Cleverly, through these ten and a half cells, he traces the history of brain research, showing how the lives and ideas of early scientists - now considered pioneers - are deeply interconnected and foundational to our understanding of the brain today. In breathtaking detail, Wingate describes his own experiences in the lab. We feel the tension as he waits by his microscope, breath held, hoping to see the stain illuminate the hidden structures of a single neuron. When it finally does, we see it too - nature’s trees, as he often calls them, delicate and branching and impossibly intricate.
His writing is not just poetic, it is human. Relatable. I was invested.
If this book had only been filled with scientific jargon (and there are sections that definitely took a few Google searches to understand), I wouldn’t have been so interested. But Wingate doesn’t let science stand alone. I probably won’t remember every cell or term, but that’s not what matters. What I will remember is how this book made the brain feel so alive.
For me, going through the history of major figures which shaped our understanding of research today was incredible. Crick, who abandoned physics for biology, and with the help of others discovered the structure of DNA - only to later work in neuroscience. Nansen’s spontaneity and fast movement through fields of science after deciding that yes! nerve cells did have gaps between them (which is so obvious now), left me in awe. Imagine if these individuals had chosen linear paths, where would research be today? Would we have known so much? What would we know now? Then there’s contrast between Ramon y Cajal and Golgi’s ideas which ironically won a joint Nobel prize mirrored later with Nansen and Apathy's disagreement. This cyclical nature of life, the feuds, the conclusions made were almost amusing. The dedication of each individual, the branching into each field, the fates between the scientists was fascinating. It reminded me just how complex and human the pursuit of science really is.
The author's own musings made parts of this book feel dreamy, exploring cells through an objective lens but also a subjective one. Because each drawing is always slightly different, depending on perspective, it raises questions: what shapes our imagination? It teeters on the edge of asking what constitutes our soul.
Perhaps I’m exaggerating. Perhaps I’m biased. But I kept thinking of that quote from Dead Poets Society, you know the one:
“And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Because I truly feel Wingate brings all of those things together in this story.
This book is an amalgamation of not only what makes up our brains, but also of the little ghosts which live inside of us: the stories which carry us, stories left forgotten, stories which are too deeply ingrained to be forgotten. Fittingly, it is the story of our ‘storytelling brains’.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews