Introduction
Summary of the book The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons by Sam Kean. Before we start, let’s delve into a short overview of the book. Imagine a place inside you that never sleeps. It’s always working, helping you understand the world, laugh at jokes, remember the smell of fresh bread, and recognize the faces of people you love. This busy place is your brain, and it’s more incredible than any supercomputer. For centuries, people knew it was important, but they didn’t fully grasp how it worked. Scientists wanted to peer inside it, but there were no fancy scanners back then, only careful observations of unusual injuries. Over time, strange cases—like a king who saw visions after an accident or a worker whose personality changed after an iron rod shot through his head—helped experts slowly piece together the secrets of the mind. Today, we can scan living brains as they think. But long ago, doctors learned by studying damage and linking it to lost abilities. Join us now on a journey through this hidden universe.
Chapter 1: Witnessing How Brain Injuries Unlocked Hidden Maps Within Our Skulls’ Deepest Mystery.
Long ago, before anyone imagined a brain scan machine humming gently in a hospital room, our ancestors knew little about what lived inside our skulls. Back then, understanding the brain was like trying to read a book in total darkness. People knew that hitting your head could change how you acted, spoke, or even recognized familiar things, but they did not understand why. The only real clues came from terrible accidents or puzzling illnesses. When a person’s brain was hurt, doctors observed how that person’s behavior changed. Maybe they would forget how to speak or stop being able to recognize a friend’s face. Each strange effect left a small hint about which part of the brain did what. Through these sad and sometimes shocking events, experts began lighting tiny candles in that dark room of mystery, slowly revealing a hidden map inside our heads.
Consider the story of King Henri II of France in the mid-1500s. During a jousting match, a lance struck his head. He did not die right away. Instead, he suffered from severe headaches and saw things that were not really there, as if his mind had been rearranged. After he finally passed away, two brave medical experts did something almost unthinkable for that time: they examined his brain after death. By carefully looking inside, they noticed that the back parts of his brain were damaged. This damage likely explained the strange visions he had experienced. It was as if by peeking into Henri’s injured brain, these early observers found the first clues that certain regions were responsible for certain tasks, such as processing what we see. This single case lit a spark in the study of how brain injuries shape our understanding.
In many ways, injured brains became the first textbooks for scientists striving to learn how we think, remember, and feel. Before modern technology, researchers were like detectives at a crime scene. They looked for clues in the odd behaviors of people with serious head injuries. A patient might lose the ability to speak but still understand words. Another might see the world normally but fail to recognize a familiar face. By carefully noting these quirks, doctors could guess which hidden brain areas were harmed. When such a person passed away, an autopsy—the careful examination of the body—allowed doctors to pinpoint the wounded spot inside the skull. Over time, matching each odd symptom to a specific damaged region helped them create a mental map of the brain’s various neighborhoods.
Each piece of evidence built upon the last. Over centuries, more and more cases taught scientists that the brain wasn’t just one big, mushy organ doing all tasks at once. Instead, it was a collection of specialized parts, each like a worker with its own job. These cases showed that our personalities, our ability to think logically, our language skills, and even our emotions were linked to particular brain regions. These ancient discoveries paved the way for modern neuroscience, the scientific study of the brain, which uses advanced imaging devices and many other tools. Yet the roots of this science stretch back to those grim but enlightening encounters with broken skulls and damaged minds. They remind us that, from darkness and suffering, human curiosity can shine a light on extraordinary mysteries.
Chapter 2: Exploring The Brain’s Complex Layers: Lower Brain, Middle Brain, And Vibrant Cortex.
The human brain may look like a soft, wrinkled lump, but it’s actually arranged like a carefully structured city with different districts. At its deepest level lies the lower brain, a region that handles life’s basic needs—breathing, sleeping, and keeping your heart beating. Think of it like a city’s essential services: the water pipes, power lines, and roads that keep everything running smoothly. Above the lower brain sits the middle brain, a busy crossroads where signals travel in many directions, like trains zipping through a central station. Finally, on top, we find the cortex, a wrinkly outer layer responsible for thinking, planning, solving problems, and recognizing people and objects. Each layer builds upon the other, working together to keep our minds active and our bodies alive.
Imagine the lower brain as the foundation of a giant skyscraper. Without a sturdy base, the whole building would collapse. Similarly, your lower brain, including structures like the brainstem and cerebellum, keeps the body steady and balanced. The brainstem controls breathing and heartbeat. The cerebellum, tucked behind, helps coordinate movements so you don’t stumble around like a puppet with tangled strings. Above this foundation is the middle brain, which shares messages throughout your nervous system. It passes on signals from your eyes, ears, and other senses, ensuring that you know where you stand in the world.
Then we arrive at the grand penthouse of this mental skyscraper: the cortex. This top layer is divided into special zones called lobes, each responsible for different tasks. The frontal lobes help you plan ahead, make decisions, and control impulses. The temporal lobes process sounds and let you recognize familiar voices or melodies. The occipital lobes at the back handle vision, translating light waves into colorful, detailed pictures of the world. The parietal lobes gather touch, taste, and the sense of where your body parts are. Working together, these regions make it possible for you to play sports, remember a friend’s face, or solve a tricky math problem.
For example, when King Henri II had damage in the back of his brain, it disrupted his occipital lobes. This likely caused him to hallucinate because the visual processing center was injured. Thanks to studying such cases, scientists realized that different parts of the cortex have different jobs. Understanding this layered structure—lower brain, middle brain, and cortex—helps us appreciate how complicated and delicate our minds are. Today, modern brain scans let us watch these areas at work, lighting up like bright neighborhoods on a map. But before such technology, all we had were injured brains and careful observations. The lessons we learned from them now help us build a clearer picture of how these layers combine to make us who we are.
Chapter 3: Discovering Tiny Builders: How Neurons And Glial Cells Shape Our Everyday Minds.
If the brain is a city, its citizens are cells. Two main types of cells work together to keep everything running: neurons and glial cells. Neurons are like messengers, passing along signals that help you see a bird in the sky, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, or remember what you had for breakfast. They don’t just sit quietly; they are always active, carrying electrical impulses at incredible speeds. Without neurons, you’d be stuck in silence and darkness, unable to sense or understand anything. But neurons aren’t the only important cells up there.
Glial cells are like friendly neighbors who support and protect the neurons. They bring them food, clean up their waste, and make sure everything stays safe and sound. Without glial cells, neurons would starve and struggle, losing their ability to fire those all-important signals. Picture a huge telephone network with millions of lines connecting houses. If the lines break or lose their support, communication falls apart. Glial cells are the repair crews, maintenance workers, and bodyguards of the neuron world. They keep the entire system stable, healthy, and ready to respond to the world.
Each neuron has a unique shape, with a central cell body, branching dendrites to pick up signals, and a long axon to send messages forward. When you touch a hot stove, sensory neurons in your skin send a signal racing toward your brain, warning you to pull your hand away. Other neurons connect throughout the brain, helping you recognize patterns, form words, or experience emotions. With billions of neurons and trillions of connections, the complexity is enormous. These delicate circuits are what create your thoughts, dreams, and personality.
History shows us what happens when these cells fail. Take the tragic case of Charles Guiteau, who assassinated U.S. President James Garfield. Guiteau’s mind was tormented, and some researchers believe that a syphilis-induced infection damaged his brain’s supporting glial cells. Without proper nourishment, neurons can misfire, distorting thoughts and reality. Such examples remind us that although neurons get the spotlight for their signaling role, glial cells quietly keep the stage strong. Together, these cells build the very framework of your mind. By understanding these tiny builders, we see that the brain’s wonder doesn’t only come from neurons’ lightning-fast messages, but also from the stable support glial cells provide.
Chapter 4: Chemical Conversations: Synapses, Neurotransmitters And The Brain’s Changing Connections, Forever Evolving Pathways.
Neurons don’t talk with words; they speak through tiny gaps called synapses, where chemical messengers, known as neurotransmitters, ferry signals from one neuron to another. Imagine two people standing across a short river: they can’t physically touch, but they can toss a message in a bottle across the water. In the brain, that bottle is filled with neurotransmitters—special chemicals that fit into the next neuron’s receptors like a key opening a lock. This chemical handshake sparks new electrical signals, passing the information along. These chemical conversations happen trillions of times a day in your brain, allowing you to see, think, feel, and learn.
The brain is plastic, meaning it changes shape and rewires itself over time. Some connections grow stronger, while others fade away. Just like a city adding new roads and closing old ones, the brain updates its circuits to respond to new challenges. If you practice a new skill, like playing the guitar, neurons form stronger synaptic links to support finger movements and remember chords. If you stop practicing, those connections may weaken. This flexibility, called neuroplasticity, helps you adapt to life’s changes, learn new languages, or recover lost abilities after an injury. Your brain never truly stops reshaping itself.
Certain neurotransmitters excite neurons, urging them to pass signals forward. Others inhibit them, telling them to relax and not fire. This balance keeps your thoughts and actions flowing smoothly. Without the right balance, problems occur. For instance, if certain neurotransmitters fail to work properly, you might experience mood swings, attention problems, or difficulties learning. Scientists also know that unusual brain connections can lead to special abilities. Some blind individuals learn to navigate their world by echolocation, using clicks and listening to echoes. Their brains reroute signals so that the seeing areas can process sound instead, creating a remarkable form of sensory substitution.
This constant remodeling shows that we are never truly stuck with the brain we’re born with. It adapts to injuries, changes with learning, and even compensates for lost senses. By understanding how synapses and neurotransmitters work, we gain a better grasp of why each brain is unique. Our minds are shaped not just by what we’re born with, but also by how we live, what we practice, and which experiences we cherish. The chemical conversations at each synapse create a rich tapestry of who we are. It’s amazing to realize that beneath every thought, feeling, and memory, countless tiny messengers are at work, forging fresh pathways in the great landscape of our mind.
Chapter 5: When Parts Fail: Specific Brain Damages That Dramatically Alter Our Everyday Realities.
Picture waking up one morning and not recognizing your mother’s face, even though you clearly know her voice and smell her familiar perfume. This can happen if the part of your brain that identifies faces becomes damaged. The human brain, though tightly interconnected, is made up of countless specialized regions, each handling specific tasks. One area helps you speak, another helps you understand speech, another recognizes objects, and yet another sorts out faces. When a tiny spot gets harmed—maybe by a stroke, injury, or disease—the ability linked to that spot can vanish or change dramatically. This makes everyday reality feel strange or confusing.
One example is face blindness, a condition known medically as prosopagnosia. People with face blindness see faces normally but can’t tell them apart. They might mistake a friend for a stranger or fail to identify their parents in a crowd. Another example involves movement and location: there’s a set of brain pathways that help you understand where objects are and how they move. If this network is disrupted, tasks like picking up a pencil or catching a ball become surprisingly difficult. Instead of seeing a smooth, understandable world, your surroundings might feel like a puzzle with missing pieces.
There are also brain regions that form a kind of body map. Each body part—your hand, foot, tongue—has its own spot in the brain’s map. If you lose a limb, that area might still remain in your brain, sometimes causing a phantom feeling as if the missing part were still there. This shows how deeply wired these maps are. Another curious example involves the language centers. If a person has damage to Broca’s area, they may struggle to form words even though they know what they want to say. Damage to Wernicke’s area might leave someone able to speak, but their words come out as meaningless sounds.
These cases show that a healthy brain choreographs an intricate dance of signals, each part playing its role in perception, language, recognition, and movement. But when one dancer stumbles, the entire performance can change. By studying people who have these unusual brain injuries, scientists learn exactly which neurons handle which tasks. It’s like having a detailed map: if one bridge is out, you know which route was disrupted. This knowledge helps doctors understand certain disorders and design therapies to restore what’s lost or to help people adapt. Although these situations are often sad or challenging for those affected, they give us precious clues about how the healthy brain works to create our everyday reality.
Chapter 6: Emotions, Decisions, And The Limbic System’s Influence On Our Inner Moral Compass.
Have you ever felt tears in your eyes before you knew why you were sad, or felt your heart race in excitement before you realized you were happy? Your brain sometimes feels things before you make sense of them. At the core of this emotional engine lies the limbic system, a collection of structures deep inside the brain. The limbic system helps you remember important events, feel anger or fear when you’re in danger, and find joy in a friend’s smile. Without it, you might still think and plan, but you wouldn’t fully appreciate life’s colors and textures.
The limbic system includes the thalamus, which sorts incoming information like a busy air traffic controller guiding planes. The hippocampus helps form memories, so you know who you are and where you’ve been. The amygdala stirs up strong emotions like fear or aggression. Meanwhile, your frontal lobes, located in the front part of your brain, help you use reason. They guide you to weigh options carefully, consider consequences, and shape your behavior in a thoughtful way. The connection between the limbic system and these frontal lobes is essential. If that link breaks, emotions and reason drift apart, causing strange behaviors.
Imagine a person named Elliot, whose tumor severed the connection between his emotional core and rational thinking areas. Though Elliot remained smart and had normal feelings, he struggled with even the simplest decisions, like picking a shirt to wear. Without emotional guidance to signal what mattered, every choice felt equal and meaningless. Another famous case is that of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who survived a terrible accident that destroyed part of his frontal brain. Before the accident, he was kind, hardworking, and dependable. Afterward, he became impulsive, rude, and irresponsible. The iron rod that pierced his brain had also shattered his moral compass.
These stories remind us that emotions aren’t just messy feelings that get in the way of logic. They help guide our decisions by tagging information as good, bad, or urgent. Emotions and logic partner up, letting us set goals, avoid danger, and treat others kindly. The limbic system injects raw feelings, and the frontal lobes refine them, producing balanced choices. When the limbic system falters or loses its connection to rational thought, people may make reckless decisions, show poor judgment, or lose the kindness they once had. By understanding this delicate teamwork, scientists can better grasp why we behave the way we do, and how our moral senses, empathy, and personal values emerge from tiny signals firing deep within our brains.
Chapter 7: Hormonal Highways: Chemical Messengers That Navigate Our Behavior, Desires, And Growth Steadily.
Not all communication in the brain relies on fast electrical signals hopping across synapses. Some messages travel through your bloodstream, carried by hormones—chemical messengers that move more slowly but affect a broad range of targets. Hormones are like distant relatives who send letters rather than quick text messages. They influence growth, mood, hunger, and even how you bond with friends or family. Unlike neurotransmitters, which jump between neighboring neurons, hormones can reach many areas of the body, stirring changes that unfold more gradually.
These powerful chemicals originate from glands, including those located in the brain itself, like the pituitary gland. One key hormone is the growth hormone, which helps determine how tall you become and how your body tissues repair themselves. If there’s too little growth hormone, a person might remain shorter. Too much can lead to unusual growth spurts. Hormones also shape our emotions and desires. The amygdala, a limbic structure, can influence levels of adrenaline, making your heart pound with excitement or fear. Imbalances in hormone levels can affect not just your mood but also how you respond to stress and how you view the world around you.
Consider how damage to the brain’s hormone-regulating regions can cause odd shifts in behavior. The limbic system, when disturbed, may release hormones that create unusual drives or reduce normal fears. Certain rare conditions lead people to lose their normal caution or to experience abnormal urges. In some cases, damage to the thalamus or related structures leads to sudden, uncontrollable fits of laughter or tears, or unusual changes in a person’s sense of morality or attraction. While these situations are rare and often disturbing, they show how deeply hormones can shape not just our bodies but also our identities.
Hormones don’t act alone. They interact with neurotransmitters, brain structures, and our environment. Everything from what we eat to how we sleep can influence hormone levels. Understanding these chemical highways reveals a bigger picture of the brain’s complexity. It’s not just a machine of electrical signals; it’s also a garden of chemical reactions, blooming and fading over time. By studying hormonal imbalances, doctors can treat conditions like anxiety, depression, or unusual growth patterns. This knowledge helps us appreciate that human nature isn’t fixed. It’s continually shaped by a blend of chemicals, each playing its part in a grand orchestra that determines how we feel, behave, and grow.
Chapter 8: Fragile Masterpiece: How Minor Faults Can Trigger Strange Brain Malfunctions, Truly Unpredictable Outcomes.
The brain is a miracle of complexity, yet it’s also fragile. Even in a healthy brain, things don’t always run perfectly. Minor glitches can lead to unusual experiences like sleep paralysis, where you wake up but can’t move, trapped between dreaming and waking reality. This happens because the brain’s mechanism that prevents you from acting out your dreams fails to switch off at the right time. For a few terrifying moments, you’re awake in a stiff, silent body, powerless and confused.
Epilepsy is another example of how delicate the brain’s balance can be. In epilepsy, certain neurons misfire, causing electrical storms that lead to seizures. These can range from brief moments of staring off into space to violent, full-body convulsions. Sometimes, seizures are triggered by specific sights, sounds, or even smells. Epilepsy often runs in families, but it can also result from head injuries or developmental issues. This condition shows that when just a small group of neurons behaves strangely, the whole system can be disrupted.
Nutritional problems can also affect the brain. A lack of vitamin B1 can cause Korsakoff syndrome, commonly seen in people with severe alcoholism. Without enough B1, the brain struggles to process glucose, the fuel it needs. As a result, vital neuron coatings and neurotransmitters aren’t properly maintained, leading to memory loss, confusion, and sometimes bizarre lying. Brain disorders can stem from genetic faults, infections, chemical imbalances, or simple accidents. They teach us that the brain, despite its wonders, can malfunction in surprising, unsettling ways.
By observing such disorders, scientists learn what the brain needs to stay healthy and where its weak points lie. Modern medicine has given us tools to manage or treat some conditions—antiseizure drugs for epilepsy, nutritional therapies for deficiencies—but there is still much to uncover. Each malfunction provides a lesson in how the normal brain works and where it’s most vulnerable. The brain’s fragility is a humbling reminder that we must care for our minds and bodies. The slightest imbalance can rewrite our inner experiences, showing that the border between healthy and unusual can sometimes be thin and easily crossed.
Chapter 9: Hippocampus At Work: Understanding Memory’s Layers From Quick Recall To Deep Past.
Think about the last sentence you read. Hold it in your mind. That’s your short-term memory at work. Now think about your first day at school or a birthday party long ago. Those are older, more settled memories. The brain handles these different kinds of memories through various networks, and the hippocampus is at the center of it all. This small, curved structure helps gather short-term memories and transform them into long-term ones that you can revisit years later. Without the hippocampus, remembering what happened just moments ago would be difficult, and creating lasting memories would be nearly impossible.
Memory isn’t one simple thing. We have declarative memory, which involves facts and knowledge you can state—like naming the capital of a country or recalling what you ate for lunch. We also have procedural memory, which helps you perform tasks without thinking too hard, like tying your shoelaces or riding a bike. Episodic memory stores personal experiences, such as a family vacation or a funny moment with friends. Each memory type involves different brain areas, but the hippocampus is a vital hub, making sure new information settles into a stable, lasting form.
The hippocampus works closely with the cortex, where long-term memories eventually reside. When you encounter new information—like a fun fact or a friend’s new phone number—the hippocampus helps decide whether it’s important enough to store. Repeated use strengthens these memories, as if rewriting them in thicker ink. Emotional intensity also makes memories stick. That’s why frightening or joyful events can remain vivid for years. Without the hippocampus, life would be a series of moments slipping away, never forming a coherent story of who you are.
Damage to the hippocampus can lead to serious memory problems, like being unable to form new memories. People with such damage might greet old friends as if they were meeting for the first time. Studying these unfortunate cases helps scientists understand how memory works. By mapping which areas light up during memory tasks, they confirm the hippocampus’s role in building our internal libraries of knowledge, skill, and personal history. Ultimately, our sense of identity relies on memory. We are shaped by what we remember, and the hippocampus ensures that the chapters of our lives remain accessible, connecting our past, present, and future selves.
Chapter 10: Hemispheric Harmony: Left And Right Brain Working Together To Shape Identity Truly.
You might have heard people say someone is right-brained or left-brained, as if one side of the brain defines their personality. In reality, while each hemisphere of your brain does have its specialties, they work together like two skilled musicians in a duet. The left hemisphere often handles language, logic, and reasoning. The right hemisphere shines with spatial tasks, art, and recognizing faces. But most tasks require both hemispheres cooperating, sharing information across a bridge of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum.
Language is a clear example of this teamwork. The left hemisphere usually houses regions like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, crucial for producing and understanding speech. Damage here can lead to difficulties expressing yourself or making sense of words. Yet the right hemisphere can still help with understanding tone, emotion, and nuance. Similarly, recognizing a familiar face might be guided by the right side, but attaching meaning, recalling a name, or feeling the emotional warmth associated with that person involves multiple brain areas working in unison.
Sometimes, if connections between the hemispheres are disrupted, strange conditions arise. Capgras syndrome, for instance, leads a person to recognize a loved one’s face but feel no emotional connection. They may insist the person is an imposter. This happens when the emotional responses that usually come from the limbic system fail to link properly with facial recognition areas. Such conditions highlight how important both sides of the brain are for forming a complete picture of reality.
The left and right hemispheres also control opposite sides of your body—your left brain steers your right hand, and your right brain guides your left hand. Only by sharing information can you perform complex actions smoothly. Hemispheric cooperation shapes how you learn, think, and experience the world. Without this balance, you might lose the subtle mix of logic and emotion, fact and feeling, that defines who you are. Studying people with split-brain conditions or damage to one side provides a window into how these halves unite to produce a single, integrated consciousness.
Chapter 11: The Enigma Of Consciousness: Brain Structures Dancing To Create Our Inner Universe.
Throughout history, people wondered where consciousness lived. Ancient Egyptians thought the heart was the center of thought, not the brain. We now know the brain is responsible, but consciousness remains a puzzle. It’s not stored in one tiny spot. Instead, it arises from the constant cooperation of memory, emotion, perception, and decision-making centers, all working together. Consciousness is like a grand dance performed by countless dancers, each representing a brain structure, stepping in time to create the music of you.
What is it that gives you a sense of self? It’s a combination of your memories—both factual and personal—your emotions, your ability to recognize your body as your own, and your sense of control over your actions. If something disrupts these elements, consciousness can feel altered or fragmented. Some people have conditions where they no longer recognize their own limbs as part of themselves, or they believe they have died when they are very much alive. These bizarre conditions show that consciousness is delicate and can be twisted into strange shapes when certain brain areas fail to communicate.
Yet, even with memory loss or severe brain damage, some people maintain a core sense of who they are. Their personalities shine through, suggesting that consciousness is spread broadly across neural networks, not tied to just one location. Researchers are still trying to understand how all these parts fit together. Brain scans can show which areas are active when we think, dream, or feel pain. Philosophers and scientists debate where the line between conscious and unconscious thought lies, and how physical brain processes create the rich experience of being alive.
In many ways, we’ve come a long way from the days when doctors peered into the skulls of injured kings to learn about the brain. Modern neuroscience uses advanced tools, but the essence of discovery is the same. Each unusual brain injury, each odd disorder, each carefully analyzed scan adds another piece to the puzzle. We know now that the brain is a network of specialized parts, each influencing how we sense the world and understand ourselves. Yet, the full nature of consciousness remains mysterious. The brain’s ability to create our inner universe—our thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams—is still one of the grandest riddles we’ve ever faced. And that enduring mystery keeps us forever curious.
All about the Book
Explore the fascinating intersection of neurology and humanity in ‘The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons’ by Sam Kean, where thrilling stories reveal the brain’s mysteries, illuminating the quirks of the human mind and the nature of our existence.
Sam Kean is a renowned author and storyteller, known for his engaging explorations of science, often blending humor and history, making complex subjects accessible and captivating to readers of all backgrounds.
Neurosurgeons, Psychiatrists, Medical Students, Science Writers, Healthcare Professionals
Reading Non-fiction, Exploring Neuroscience, Participating in Science Communication, Attending Medical Conferences, Engaging in Brain Teaser Puzzles
The complexity of the human brain, Understanding neurological disorders, Ethics in neurology and neuroscience, The relationship between brain function and behavior
The brain is an organ that’s ridiculously good at finding new ways to function when faced with injuries.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Gates, Oliver Sacks
ALA Notable Books, Booklist Editor’s Choice, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award
1. How do brain injuries reveal mind mysteries? #2. What are the brain’s unusual repair mechanisms? #3. How do surgeons master complex brain surgeries? #4. What does history teach us about brain science? #5. How does brain damage affect personality changes? #6. What role do famous patients play in neuroscience? #7. How is human consciousness linked to brain activity? #8. What can we learn from split-brain studies? #9. How does brain lateralization affect human behavior? #10. What insights do autopsies provide on brain function? #11. How do brain injuries inform neurological advancements? #12. How are brain and behavior intricately connected? #13. What are the ethical dilemmas in neurosurgery? #14. How do visual illusions trick the brain? #15. What mysteries do phantom limbs unveil? #16. How is memory affected by brain trauma? #17. What historical brain cases changed medical practices? #18. How do emotions originate in the brain? #19. How critical is the corpus callosum in cognition? #20. What links exist between epilepsy and creativity?
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