In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

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Overview

“A stunning book.”—Oliver Sacks

Charting the intellectual history of the emerging biology of mind, Eric R. Kandel illuminates how behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology have converged into a powerful new science of mind. This science now provides nuanced insights into normal mental functioning and disease, and simultaneously opens pathways to more effective healing.

Driven by vibrant curiosity, Kandel’s...

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In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

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More About This Book

Overview

“A stunning book.”—Oliver Sacks

Charting the intellectual history of the emerging biology of mind, Eric R. Kandel illuminates how behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology have converged into a powerful new science of mind. This science now provides nuanced insights into normal mental functioning and disease, and simultaneously opens pathways to more effective healing.

Driven by vibrant curiosity, Kandel’s personal quest to understand memory is threaded throughout this absorbing history. Beginning with his childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna, In Search of Memory chronicles Kandel’s outstanding career from his initial fascination with history and psychoanalysis to his groundbreaking work on the biological process of memory, which earned him the Nobel Prize.

A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory traces how a brilliant scientist’s intellectual journey intersected with one of the great scientific endeavors of the twentieth century: the search for the biological basis of memory.

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
This singular book by Austrian-born Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel interweaves two strands: First, the narrative of his own life; and second, the story of his breakthrough research on memory. In Search of Memory describes how the findings of several disciplines (behaviorist psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology) converged to form a new science of mind.
Sherwin B. Nuland
His is an important and marvelous book. Sigmund Freud and the illustrious cavalcade of pioneering neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers who have contributed so much to our understanding of the human mind during the past century would look with pleasure on it.
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
When, as a medical student in the 1950s, Kandel said he wanted to locate the ego and id in the brain, his mentor told him he was overreaching, that the brain had to be studied "cell by cell." After his initial dismay, Kandel took on the challenge and in 2000 was awarded a Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research showing how memory is encoded in the brain's neuronal circuits. Kandel's journey into the brain spans five decades, beginning in the era of early research into the role of electrical currents flowing through neurons and ending in the age of genetic engineering. It took him from early studies of reflexes in the lowly squid to the founding of a bioengineering firm whose work could some day develop treatments for Alzheimer's and on to a rudimentary understanding of the cellular mechanisms underlying mental illness. Kandel's life also took him on another journey: from Vienna, which his Jewish family fled after the Anschluss, to New York City and, decades later, on visits back to Vienna, where he boldly confronted Austria's unwillingness to look at its collusion in the Final Solution. For anyone considering a career in science, the early part of this intellectual autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of a scientist's formation: learning to trust his instincts on what research to pursue and how to pose a researchable question and formulate an experiment. Much of the science discussion is too dense for the average reader. But for anyone interested in the relationship between the mind and the brain, this is an important account of a creative and highly fruitful career. 50 b&w illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Nobelist Kandel's career mirrors the growth and development of cognitive sciences from the mid to late 20th century to today. From his early attraction to psychoanalysis to the biological mechanisms of the mind itself, Kandel has kept close to the research frontiers. His first-person account thus serves as much as a history of the field as it does an autobiography (indeed, the personal anecdotes are sporadic and almost all intertwined with academic elucidation). What comes through vividly, though, is the passion and enthusiasm of a leading researcher working in intellectually revolutionary times. The "new science of mind" Kandel discusses is both symbolically and mechanistically represented by human memory, which subsumes a person's own logic and values, but at the same time can be studied at the cellular and molecular levels. In keeping with the theme that his own career is a microcosm of the changes in the field, Kandel enthuses that the study of memory not only stimulated a lifetime's worth of personally rewarding work, but commends a similarly rich future to the next generation. Recommended as a first book to read for anybody with a more than merely curious interest in the subject, or as a companion to Daniel Schacter's Searching for Memory or Joseph LeDoux's The Synaptic Self.-Gregg Sapp, Science Lib., SUNY Albany Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780393329377
  • Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 3/19/2007
  • Pages: 512
  • Sales rank: 213,405
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

Eric R. Kandel is Kavli Professor and University Professor at Columbia University and senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000. He lives in New York City.

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Table of Contents


Preface     xi
1
Personal Memory and the Biology of Memory Storage     3
A Childhood in Vienna     12
An American Education     33
2
One Cell at a Time     53
The Nerve Cell Speaks     74
Conversation Between Nerve Cells     90
Simple and Complex Neuronal Systems     103
Different Memories, Different Brain Regions     116
Searching for an Ideal System to Study Memory     135
Neural Analogs of Learning     150
3
Strengthening Synaptic Connections     165
A Center for Neurobiology and Behavior     180
Even a Simple Behavior Can Be Modified by Learning     187
Synapses Change with Experience     198
The Biological Basis of Individuality     208
Molecules and Short-Term Memory     221
Long-Term Memory     240
Memory Genes     247
A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses     261
4
A Return to Complex Memory     279
Synapses Also Hold Our Fondest Memories     286
The Brain's Picture of the External World     295
Attention Must Be Paid!     307
5
A Little Red Pill     319
Mice, Men, and MentalIllness     335
A New Way to Treat Mental Illness     352
Biology and the Renaissance of Psychoanalytic Thought     363
Consciousness     376
6
Rediscovering Vienna via Stockholm     393
Learning from Memory: Prospects     416
Glossary     431
Notes and Sources     453
Acknowledgments     485
Index     489
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
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Sort by: Showing all of 15 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 1, 2007

    A reviewer

    A fabulous book from a distinguished scientist who has spent his career in search of memory. Part memoir, part history of neuroscience, and part pop science account, this is definitely an informative and even an entertaining read. It is filled with colorful characters from the past and present of neuroscience, some famous, some primarily known within their particular field of research. One of these colorful characters was Alden Spencer, who was one of Kandel's colleagues, who had a sharp mind and died at a tragically young age. The book also contains some very interesting information about the brain basis of mental illness, including some interesting rodent studies. Also discusses a merging of biological and psychoanalytical thought, plus some recent ideas about consciousness. Overall, a very worthwhile and enjoyable read, for the scientist and general reader alike, delivered with the same thoughtfulness and attention to detail as in his co-authored textbook, Principles of Neural Science.

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 14, 2006

    Worth the effort

    This is an outstanding book that weaves biography and science. In the process you may gain an understanding and appreciation for the way scientists do their work. Kandel has made a real effort to make the complex intelligible to the general reader.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 31, 2007

    Outstanding Book.!! from a novice to Biology

    This is one of the best books i have ever read. Eric makes a careful synthesis of Science and Biography, and maintains the equilibrium throughout the book. Though i am not with a medical background, i could get the basics of memory and physiology. When outlining a complex scientific theories, he accompanies them with relevent basics, which makes you not to feel 'Greek to me'. I recommend everyone to read this book and take the benefit of one of the most important discoveries of 20th century.

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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