Dean Buonomano

Brain Bugs was a very readable, informative, and enjoyable book about the workings of the brain. While having potential for a dry and clinical book, Mr. Buonomano presented numerous facts and examples in layman's terms which gives insights into how the brain works, and why it works the way it does. His insights linking human evolution to the workings of the brain, and why we're susceptible to several of our known limitations, were especially thought provoking.

Note to myself: Don't leave a long gap between reading the book and writing the review. In the case of "Brain Bugs" I must have actually read the book about 4 months ago.....maybe more but have only just come around to writing the review. And, of course, I've forgotten most of it. In fact I have had to re-read the book in order to write the review.........partially because my recall is poor and partly because it's actually a pretty tough book to review. It's tough in the sense that there is show more a mountain of content there about the operations of the brain and tough in the sense that it's hard to detect a clear "story". He covers off things like:
1. The memory web....we recall best by association and by stories. Two types of memory a) declarative memory...the capital of India is New Delhi and b) impact memory (how to ride a bike).
2. Memory upgrade required......the memories of our own experiences are not faithful reproductions but rather partial and fluid reconstructions based on a mosaic of events that span different points in space and time. We can have false memories and our brains are much better at recognising faces than storing numbers. It's the reverse with computers (at the moment).
3. Brain crashes.....the brain's remarkable capacity to learn, adapt, and reorganise has a flip side. In response to trauma, neural plasticity can be responsible for phenomena such as phantom limbs and tinnitus.
4. Temporal distortions......our intuitions about time are highly suspect and our judgements of time are greatly affected by context. We also seem to be genetically programmed to adopt short term solutions rather than long term solutions (which may deliver greater benefits).
5. Fear factor.....in animals (including humans) there is both hard-wired fear and learned fear. Phobias are characterised by an exaggerated and inappropriate sense of fear to specific stimuli. Our genetic responses are not appropriate for the kinds of situations we face today....terrorism, environmental issues etc.....and we are all too-well prepared to learn fear through observation. Hence we fear terrorism or invasion or death by shark attack out of all proportion to the real likelihood of being affected by these.
6. Unreasonable reasoning. We have two complementary neural systems....the automatic one responsible for rapid/unconscious decisions. This is the more emotional one ...it attends to whether things are good or bad; fair or unfair; reasonable or risky. The second one is conscious, reflective, effortful and benefits from practice and education. Some of our irrational responses are certainly attributable to the fact that the brain evolved to deal with different circumstances to those we face today.
7. The advertising bug. Whether marketing is executed through TV ads, Web sites, product placement in movies or though sales representatives, it unquestionably influences what we buy and desire. The propensity to learn by imitation and the associative architecture of the brain are surely two of the main reasons why our neural operating systems are so susceptible to marketing.
8. The supernatural bug. Most neuroscientists don't expect to find a "belief" centre in the brain and evidence to date indicates that religious beliefs likely engage a distributed network of different brain areas functioning as a committee. Buonomano suggests that if there is a genetic basis to our supernatural beliefs then they are probably the brain's default state and we have evolved mechanisms capable of suppressing these beliefs. (His reasoning here seems rather circular and unsatisfactory).
9. Debugging. Sometime in the distant future we may be able to reprogram the genetic code that controls our fear circuits etc., but in the short term, debugging of brain foibles will rely on education, culture and "effortful deliberation". Our experiences, cultures and education rewire our neural circuits, which in turn shape our thoughts, actions and decisions....which in turn alter our experiences and culture.....a never ending loop.We need to use our knowledge of neuroscience and psychology to teach us to recognise and compensate for our brain bugs.
As I said, there is a mountain of content there, and it's a bit difficult to see a clear thread through the whole. I guess his story might best be summarised as: the brain is a complex bit of "machinery" but because of its evolutionary development it operates with a lot of flaws and errors. Understanding these flaws should help us to deal with them and educate people about managing them.
Overall, a really interesting book. Well written. I learned a lot. Happy to give it 5 stars show less

11/7/2017
I read this during a flight to Las Vegas for the AAN fall conference, almost finished it, and took it up two weeks later, after two busy weekends. It is well written, easy to read, but packed with hard to understand concepts.
I find it very hard to summarize. The first third is a discussion of circadian rhythms in animals, and even in single cell organisms, and the ways that time keeping can be modeled by oscillating neural circuits. There are also transcription and translation show more oscillators; a protein concentration increases to the point that it shuts down its translation, and as it is degraded its production increases. This can account for timing within individual cells.
The second section is on the physics and mental meaning of time. The special theory of relativity receives a discussion, and the opposing thoughts of eternalism - the universe is an unchanging block of spacetime versus presentism, in which view only the present exists. Most physicists believe in eternalism. Entropy of course is part of the discussion of the arrow of time.
Roger Penrose is quoted "It seems to me there are severe discrepancies between what we consciously feel, concerning the flow of time, and what our (marvelously accurate) theories assert about the reality of the physical world. These discrepancies must be telling us something deep about the physics that presumably must actually underlie our conscious perceptions …" Speculation ranges from Einstein "For us believing physicists, the division into past, present and future has merely the meaning of an albeit obstinate illusion" to the possibility that the conscious belief is due to quantum processes in the brain.
The last section is on mental time travel; this may be a property only of consciousness. Jorge Luis Borges: "To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death" Foresight may have been demonstrated in scrub jays and in chimpanzees. The last chapter is called "Consciousness: Binding the Past and Future" Neuroscientist Paul Haggard summarizes work on the neuroscience of willed actions as "although we may experience that our conscious decisions and thoughts cause our actions, these experiences are in fact based on readouts of brain activity in a network of brain areas that control voluntary action" show less

I didn't think this book would deliver anything new. Having read a few books on the subject, I was skeptical about it. But I was wrong. The book did provide some interesting, yet new insights about how our brain works.
The chapters on temporal distortions (space, time and causation), fear factor and the advertising bug were a surprise and fascinating read.
Buonomano systematically puts forth his examples and sets his case, guiding the readers through each chapter on the fallacies of human show more brains and what one should be aware of while making truly rational decisions. show less