Your body has a mind of its own. You know it’s true. You can sense it, even though it may be hard to articulate. You know that your body is more than a vehicle for your brain to cruise around in, but how deeply are mind and body truly interwoven?

Answers can be found in the emerging science of body maps. Just as road maps represent interconnections across the landscape, your many body maps represent all aspects of your bodily self. Your self doesn’t begin and end with your physical body but extends into the space around you. When you drive a car, your personal body space grows to envelop it. When you play a video game, your body maps automatically track and emulate the actions of your character onscreen. If your body maps fall out of sync, you may have an out-of-body experience or see auras around other people.

The Body Has a Mind of Its Own explains how you can tap into the power of body maps to do almost anything better: play tennis, strum a guitar, ride a horse, dance a waltz, empathize with a friend, raise children, cope with stress. Filled with illustrations, wonderful anecdotes, and even parlor tricks that you can use to reconfigure your body sense, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own will change the way you think about what it takes to have a conscious mind inside a feeling body.

Praise for The Body Has a Mind of Its Own

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

“You’ll never think about your body–or your mind–in the same way again.”
–Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence

“A fascinating exploration of senses we didn’t even know we had.”
–Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Coming to Our Senses

“A delightfully original, understandable, and mind-stretching work.”
–William Safire, columnist, The New York Times Magazine

“A marvelous book.”
–V. S. Ramachandran, M.D., director, Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego

“[An] accessible, practical overview of an important scientific story.”
–Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes’ Error

Revolving around the general idea of "Body Maps," or your brain's awareness of your body and personal space, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own provides insight into the way we perceive almost every sensation, action, or emotion. In a more attention-keeping and conversational tone that most non-fiction, fairly complex psychological ideas are explained quite concisely, and in the lexicon of the average person. Starting with the basic underlying principle of how the brain maps out your person, usually with very large areas on the map for hands and mouth (which makes quite a lot of sense), it continues to glide through ways to actualize and strengthen the relationship between your body and mind.

The Blakeslees have come up with an informative and clear diagram of some very useful connections that exist within your being, documenting them thoroughly and even producing methods of exercising them. A delightful read from front to back, The Body Has a Mind of Its Own will, not surprisingly, provoke thought and meditation.

Reviewed by Jordan Dacayanan

The Body has a Mind of its Own was an enjoyable read and was not at all a "textbook," as some science non-fiction writing can be. As a student in a Neuroscience class, I could scientifically appreciate what the Blakeslees were saying, but also as someone who doesn't find time to sit down and read a book often, I found that they managed to keep my attention through their interesting examples and obvious enthusiasm.

The underlying theme of the book, as portrayed in the text's subtitle, is how the combination of multiple neural circuits in the brain helps to map out pretty much everything that we do. This topic appeals to a broad audience because the examples that the authors present show that in fact, we use these maps on a daily basis.

The book has 10 chapters, each looking at a different aspect of how these body maps and their plasticity help us get through our lives. The introduction and first chapter provide a basis for what will be discussed throughout the rest of the book, the idea that we understand our bodies using a "tightly integrated network" of body maps. The next three chapters present the idea of the homunculus as well as how this "little man" can sense such things as how we perceive touch, how we perform athletically, and even why your last diet failed. The following two chapters provide several interesting, yet strange examples of what happens when these body maps go wrong. The authors use one chapter apiece to describe when the maps "go blurry" and what happens when they flat out "break." Chapters 7 and 8 begin to explain where the body maps end when it comes to proprioception, and chapter 9 provides extremely interesting information on mirror neurons, including how they make sports fans as crazy as we are. The final chapter of the book takes a look at body maps created by interoception and emotion.

I have a very high opinion of the book, and thought that the authors did a great job of portraying several somewhat complex ideas in a way that almost anyone could understand.

Specific Opinions
Throughout the book, there are several text boxes and illustrations that provide sometimes extra, sometimes necessary, but always interesting information on the topic being discussed. I especially enjoyed reading these additional text boxes and illustrations that provided an extra reinforcement for the information being provided in the text itself. Not to mention that most of the text boxes presented interesting real-life examples such as the NCAA runner with two prosthetic legs and the fourteen-year-old boy who could play computer games without even lifting a finger, but instead with his mind. I felt this was an interesting way of portraying the facts, but I liked seeing them separated rather than just another paragraph. In my opinion, this made the book far easier to read.

I liked that the authors provided background on the first instances of understanding functional integration within the primary somatosensory area as well as the primary motor area. I also found it interesting to see where the origins of the homunculus model are based. This "little man" kept popping up through the book, and the concepts ranged from how clumsy people differed from well coordinated people to how imagining practicing can have the same effects as doing the actual activity.

The authors mention in the title that these body maps help you do (almost) everything better. What I enjoyed most in this book were the specific examples that the authors gave. These ranged all the way from throwing darts to why you duck when you're wearing a hat; from why people are superstitious about stepping shadows to the underlying causes of eating disorders. Even all the way to why you yawn when you see someone else yawn. I also enjoyed the metaphors that the Blakeslees used. I especially liked how they used the Mandala to show the "big picture" of how all of these smaller maps come together in the brain to make up "who" we really think we "are".

Flaw
The only thing that I didn't like and noticed throughout the book was something that the authors stated in the acknowledgements section: "And finally, many researchers whose work contributed to this book have not been credited in the style becoming academic papers." Being an undergraduate student, I know that you never write of someone's work without properly citing it and was disappointed that I was unable to see where some information was coming from. As I read the book, I asked myself whether or not a statement was actually researched and documented in a laboratory setting or if it was just pure speculation. This is my only negative comment on the book, which I would still highly recommend.

From the looks of some of the negative feedback on this book, it seems that people take the subtitle to heart and think that this is a "how-to" book. The authors have instead taken several interesting neurological phenomena and have shown how they are caused, or sometimes cured, by the body maps within the brain.

My advice for reading the book is to read each chapter as you would in any other book, but if you are unsure of a topic or idea take the time to read over the text boxes and illustration descriptions. Even otherwise, I highly recommend reading all of these additional items since they are equally as interesting as they are informative.

My recommendation for potential readers is definitely to give this book a chance, whether you are someone who has a profession in neuroscience or if you are just someone who enjoys a light book that is very interesting and that provides a look into the inner workings of how we perceive our bodies as actually being more than just the flesh on our bones. Who knows? Maybe you too will discover how your body maps have been altered over the years. I know I have.

This well organized and clearly written book presents complex information on the brain and nervous system in an articulate and clear fashion that is comprehensible for the laymen but not in any way "dumbed down". The authors use many fascinating anecdotes to illustrate the incredible neural systems of primates, and how indeed the body does have its own mind. This is accessible and intriguing neuroscience.

Research on the brain has come far since the 1930s when Wilder Penfield of the University of Montreal was compelled to cut open the skulls of epileptic patients. The process meant the epileptic victim remained awake. It was the only way Penfield could learn from the subject who would describe their reactions to his gentle probing. The information, however, often led to relief resulting from Penfield's later precise surgery based on his mappings. In this comprehensive account, the authors - a mother-son science journalist team - trace the research resulting from Penfield's early efforts. In clear, concise prose, they show the revolutionary advances that have come about since then and how Penfield's early "brain maps" provided the foundation for even more effective therapies.

Penfield's technique seems harshly cruel today, but the patients suffered far more from the disability than from the probing, as the brain has no nerves that transmit pain. The mapping became a guide for better understanding of how the brain and body interact. Some of this work was covered in Sandra Blakeslee's earlier collaboration with V. S. Ramachandran: "Phantoms In the Brain". That study pointed out how amputees can still sense the presence of a missing limb, even feeling "pain" that can have no discernible cause. This work carries the implications of Ramachandran's findings forward, expanding it to address other, less extreme examples. The body-brain links are many, varied and subject to constant change. The authors refer to this as "The Body Mandala", a graphic representation of a detailed, intensely interwoven network. In this mandala, however, change is constant and varying.

The hands and fingers play a large role in this book. Professional golfers are subject to a condition they refer to as "yips". Yips are a condition where the hand is unresponsive to your wishes, or move in unintended directions. Musicians, particularly violin players, have a similar affliction in the fingers used to press the strings down. For professionals, this can be disastrous, impairing or even destroying a career. Victims will hide the condition if possible, hoping exercise or other therapy will provide a cure. It rarely does, with the authors pointing out that such exercises may actually worsen the condition. Other professions, such as tennis or soccer, for example, may have an entirely different effect on the body's mandala. The reaching for anything, even with a bat or racquet in the hand, extends the brain's mapping to reflect the action. Your "body map", linked with the brain, expands as you seek the cup of coffee on your desk. The concept gives an entirely new meaning to the term "personal space". Do politicians make this projection when addressing crowds?

The revelations provided here will change drastically not only our view of ourselves, but provide the means of therapy for conditions once considered impossible to treat. Moreover, as the authors make clear, the centre of operations for our body is the brain. Because we exist in a variety of environments with our brain constantly adjusting to the changes, the authors spend much time on recent research in "brain plasticity". The concept of brain plasticity overturned a long-held belief among neurologists that brain maps were firmly set in adolescence. The Blakeslee team recounts Ramachandran's work on "phantom" limbs, but go on to show how therapies and prosthetic devices have given even amputees amazing new capabilities. The case of Aimee Mullins, who was born without the fibula bone in her legs, went on to become an Olympic runner using artificial "feet". This success was due to her constant practice remapping her brain's image of where her body could extend.

This book is an excellent summation of the research and clinical work performed over the past generation. It's skilfully written and amply illustrated with diagrams and photographs. However, no matter how outstanding a science journalist's talents, the entire lack of references strongly diminishes the value of this book. Also lacking is any explanation of how some of the recording techniques today actually work. A good science writer should be able to convey the mechanics without undue difficulty. With the number of works on brain science now available to the non-specialist, these are inexcusable lapses. If no other work of writing skill or comprehensive coverage were on the market, this book would be a fine introduction to the topic. As it is, it might as well be a collection of New York Times Science Page columns, for which Sandra Blakeslee has an enviable reputation. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Innovative ways of understanding how the brain/body works in an easy to read presentation