ecogitar: Cerebrum 2009: Emerging Ideas in Brain Science

quarta-feira, 22 de abril de 2009

Cerebrum 2009: Emerging Ideas in Brain Science

Emerging Ideas in Brain Science

Foreword by Thomas R. Insel, M.D.

Cerebrum 2009 is an exciting, cutting-edge overview of brain science. Written by top scientists, it provides insight into a wide-ranging variety of topics, from the effects of heart surgery on the brain to neuroimaging studies of political thought. It is a fascinating and important book."

Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Description
Cerebrum 2009: Emerging Ideas in Brain Science explores the cutting edge of brain research and its implications in our everyday lives, in language understandable to the general reader.

In this annual third volume, a stellar group of scientists and science writers, including neuroscientist Guy McKhann, computational neuroscientist Sebastian Seung, developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan, and neurologist Stephen L. Hauser introduce us to cutting-edge developments in brain science such as the causes and effects of identity disorder, why the mind is sometimes foggy after heart surgery, and the dangers of unidentified traumatic brain injury. Also, you'll find timely articles about the brain and politics, scientists’ conflicts of interest, using technology to map brain connections, and the pros and cons of screening for childhood disorders.

Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, provides additional insight in his foreword, particularly regarding the concept of understanding mental disorders as disorders of the brain.

How the Media Frames Political Issues

In The Emergence of American Political Issues (1977) McCombs and Shaw state that the most important effect of the mass media is "its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."[13] The presidential observer Theodore White corroborates this conclusion in The Making of a President (1972):

The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about - an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.[14]

McCombs and Shaw also note that the media's tendency to structure voters' perceptions of political reality in effect constitutes a bias: "to a considerable degree the art of politics in a democracy is the art of determining which issue dimensions are of major interest to the public or can be made salient in order to win public support."[15]

http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html