Book Summary

From the best-selling author of Incognito and Sum comes a revelatory portrait of the human brain, based on the most recent scientific discoveries about how it continually adapts, recreates, and formulates new ways of understanding the world we live in.

The magic of the brain is not found in its parts, but in the way those parts constantly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric. To help us understand the nature and changing texture of that fabric, there is no more accomplished and accessible guide than renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman. With his hallmark clarity and enthusiasm, Eagleman reveals the myriad ways that the brain absorbs experience: developing, redeploying, organizing, and arranging the data it receives from the body's own absorption of external stimuli, which enables us to gain the skills, facilities, and practices that make us who we are.

Eagleman covers decades of the most important research into the functioning of the brain and also presents new discoveries from his own research: about synesthesia, dreaming, and wearable devices that are revolutionizing how we think about the five human senses. Brilliantly engaging, Livewired is as deeply informative as it is accessible.