Understanding the Brain From Cells to Behavior to Cognition

Book Title: Understanding the Brain From Cells to Behavior to Cognition

Book Author: John E. Dowling

Publication Information: New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2018, 299 pp., $26.95, hardcover

John E. Dowling, PhD, is a teacher’s teacher. He is a neurobiologist grounded in research, an emeritus professor of neuroscience in the department of ophthalmology at Harvard, and a writer who is in a position to comment on the current state of brain research and to posit about its future. And while specialists may each have their own favorite organ or system, let’s face it: the brain and mind are nearly everything.

Dr Dowling taught the introductory course on behavioral neuroscience for 30 years, as well as a freshman seminar titled “The Amazing Brain,” that belies his love of the topic. His Harvard profile lists some 236 published articles,1 and this book is an update of his Creating Mind, first published 20 years ago. In his preface, he asks “Where do we need to go?” His answer is ambitious: “In my view, it is the need to integrate neurobiology and cognitive science that gets at how groups of neurons and systems interact to support our higher order and complex behaviors” (p XII).

Family physicians will find this book clear, and certainly more engaging than Up-To-Date. Dowling divides the book in three sections: Part One—Cellular Neurobiology, Part Two—Systems Neuroscience Getting at Behavior, and Part Three—Cognitive Science Higher Brain Function and Mind. I found myself making marks and notes throughout the book, thinking of patients who I would share sections with when he references various diseases. His discussion (with illustrations) of multiple sclerosis, for example, is something I would give to my patients.

A discussion of synaptic vulnerability begins with toxins and considers drugs generally, with a tour of botulism, tetanus, curare, a-bungarotoxin (a component of cobra venom), and Calabar bean used as a “truth serum,” to SSRIs. You can see why freshmen could be captivated by these illustrations of the complex physiology of the synapse. And for the practitioner, Dowling provides teaching stories for our clinical encounters.

We owe a lot to the fishes, and people who donate their bodies to science. When you read Dowling’s publication list, you can see how invertebrates and various fishes contribute to his, and thus our understanding of neuroscience. I took a mental pause to thank the squid, mudpuppies, zebra fish and skates, and the dragonflies, for his examination of their ocelli and laminae. It recalls the many sacrifices made for science. It made me think about my own opportunity to prosect three brains. Long after one woman’s death, as I held her brain, proud of my preservation of the Circle of Willis, noting discoloration under cerebellum posterior of the central sulcus parietal lobe, just above the temporal lobe, there it was: the blood from the aneurysm that killed her, like the solid yolk of a boiled egg. Reading this book I found myself thinking about her, wondering in the last moments how the insult to her somatosensory area may have been perceived, and she inspires me to think about brain injury and recovery.

Dowling’s discussion of systems, in part two is the book’s strength. His discussion of vision, given his work, is a tour de force of how we see. In the third section about cognitive science and the higher functions as we move from brain to mind, Dowling becomes lyrical, as if looking back and then looking forward at the excitement of his field, and imagining what is on the horizon of scientific understanding. His discussion of language, learning, memory, emotion/rationality, and consciousness all extend arguments about how they are currently conceptualized, and what may come as we look for what he calls the proverbial “Rosetta Stone for neuroscience” that will elucidate consciousness in the awake and behaving animal.

Understanding the Brain delivers a great review of the neurobiology, systems, and frontiers of cognitive neuroscience. His chapters From Brain to Mind, and The Dynamic Brain are particularly helpful. As someone who manages a concussion clinic and works with patients after delirium, I think developmentally about the brain and the person, and these chapters were valuable to me in thinking about brain plasticity from cells to systems.

Dowling is a master teacher, having collected quips, stories, and illustrations over 30 years. He introduces most chapters with excerpts from other master teachers from Rosenham and Seligman, Sacks, Pinker, and Santiago Ramo y Cajal to name a few of these other great teachers and writers. I recommend this book to physicians interested in the brain, and in thinking about thinking, as it provides a rich review that we might leverage for our patients, and our own aging and dynamic brains and minds.