Your Brain Knows More than You Think: The New Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

Neurobiologist Birbaumer makes some far-reaching claims about how people with mental illness and brain damage can be treated in this bold book about the human brain. Premised on the 1961 Milgram experiment in which participants knowingly administered supposedly deadly shocks to an unseen victim, this work describes the brain’s survival strategies and its neuroplasticity—the “virtually limitless capacity of the brain to remold itself”—as having mostly positive but some disastrous consequences, including obsession and addiction. The ideas here may be controversial but are also exciting. Birbaumer argues that people with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, cognitive problems, and degenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and dementia can heal themselves “if they train their brain[s] in the right way.” Even non-responsive, “locked-in” people can communicate to a degree, he proposes, by using a neurofeedback method and a magnetoencephalography machine. Birbaumer developed the machine himself and describes it as “a helium-cooled device that sits on the subject’s head like an old-fashioned hood hair dryer” and picks up the signals emitted by the brain. While promoting the use of biotechnology in treating victims of stroke and epilepsy, Birbaumer expresses skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry and especially of the use of Ritalin in treating children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Though far from definitive, this book is daring and unconventional. (June)