Παρότι η πρόθεση της συγγραφής του βιβλίου είναι αυτοβιογραφική με σκοπό να εξηγήσει την πορεία προς το Νόμπελ (συνηθίζεται να ζητάνε από τους νομπελίστες να γράφουν τέτοια βιβλία) διαθέτει δύο σπάνιες αρετές:
Η πρώτη είναι η συγκροτημένη αφήγηση της ιστορίας των νευροεπιστημών που καταλαμβάνει το πρώτο μέρος του βιβλίου. Έχω διαβάσει διάφορα σχετικά βιβλία αλλά ο τρόπος που παρουσιάζει τα πράγματα ο Κάντελ έχει μια οργανικότητα, μια καθαρότητα και μια σαφήνεια. Αφού διηγηθεί αυτή την ιστορία μέχρι τις αρχές της δεκαετίας του '50, συνεχίζει με τη δική του ζωή που έρχεται και δένει πολύ ωραία, και παρουσιάζεται, άθελα ή ηθελημένα, δεν έχει σημασία, σαν συνέχεια της ίδιας εξιστόρησης.
Η δική του έρευνα είναι συναρπαστική. Διαφωτίζει τις βιολογικές βάσεις των διεργασιών που δημιουργούν τη μνήμη στα έμβια όντα και, τελικά, στον άνθρωπο. Παρότι είχα διαβάσει διάφορα σχετικά, νομίζω ήταν η πρώτη φορά που κατάλαβα το θέμα. Και μόνο γι αυτό το βιβλίο μου ήταν πολύτιμο.

Η δεύτερη είναι ιστορία των Εβραίων της Βιέννης. Ο Κάντελ όντας ο ίδιος Εβραίος που αναγκάστηκε να φύγει από τον τόπο γέννησης του σε παιδική ηλικία, κουβαλάει την πίκρα της χαμένης πατρίδας και της μεγάλης αδικίας που του έγινε. Το ενδιαφέρον όμως, προς το τέλος του βιβλίου, είναι η προσπάθεια του να φέρει στο φως το θέμα της μεταχείρισης των Εβραίων από τους Αυστριακούς. Γιατί, όπως λέει, ενώ η Γερμανία έκανε και κάνει την αυτοκριτική της, η Αυστρία κουκούλωσε το θέμα, το αποσιώπησε, άφησε ατιμώρητους τους Ναζί της, πολλοί από τους οποίους είδαν τις ποινές τους να μειώνονται μετά τον Β' Παγκόσμιο ή, χειρότερα, συνέχισαν να καταλαμβάνουν ανενόχλητοι δημόσιες θέσεις. Ο Κάντελ, κι όποιος άλλος εγείρει το θέμα, γίνεται αντιπαθής στην κοινή γνώμη της Αυστρίας αν, κι απότι λέει ο ίδιος, αυτή η στάση αφορά κυρίως τις μεγαλύτερες ηλικίες. Οι πιο νέοι είναι πιο ανοιχτοί να αντιμετωπίσουν το θέμα.

Το μεγάλο όμως ερωτηματικό που μου γέννησε το βιβλίο είναι η αξία της μετάφρασης των επιστημονικών όρων. Έχοντας διαβάσει κάποια σχετική βιβλιογραφία στα αγγλικά, δυσκολευόμουν πολύ να κάνω τις συσχετίσεις των ανατομικών όρων. Αυτό με έκανε να αναρωτηθώ για την αξία του να έχουμε μια ελληνική ορολογία στις επιστήμες. Ενω, εν πρώτοις κάτι τέτοιο φαίνεται να συνιστά στοιχείο εθνικής υπηρηφάνειας, τελικά γίνεται ένα πρόσκωμα στους έλληνες επιστήμονες γιατί τους αναγκάζει να μάθουν δυό σύνολα ορολογιών και να αγωνιστούν να τα συσχετίσουν. Δημιουργεί τις προϋποθέσεις παραγωγής ελληνικών διδακτικών εγχειριδίων που γενικά δεν είναι των διεθνών στάνταρ και τελικά κάνει την ελληνική επιστήμη πιο επαρχιώτική.
Θυμάμαι πριν χρόνια την έκπληξη μου όταν άκουσα από Τούρκο ότι στο Πανεπιστήμιο διδάσκονται στα Αγγλικά κι ότι δεν υπάρχει αντίστοιχη τουρκική ορολογία. Ίσως αυτό να εξηγεί τα γρήγορα βήματα που έχει κάνει η Τουρκική ακαδημαϊκή κοινότητα τα τελευταία χρόνια.

What can say? This book is a great book for anyone at all interested in Neuroscience. Fascinating discoveries on why some memories are stronger than others. This information has allowed me to realize that I can control how strongly I feel about things that happened in the past by simply not revisiting the memory. With time the strength of the memories will fade.

worth reading.

Çokça düşünürüm, vücudumun kanlı canlı biyolojisi dışında içimde her şeye hakimmis gibi, gören, konuşan, karar veren, seven, nefret eden, korkan, heyecanlanan, sıkılan şey nedir nasıl bir şeydir diye. Düalistlerin dediği gibi bedenin disinda sonsuz ve ölümsüz bir ruh mu, yoksa karmaşık yapısından dolayı hala tam olarak kavrayamadığımız beynin içinde nöronların ve sinapslarin fiziksel curcunasi mi?
Bu kitap, ikinci onermenin pesinden gidip bunun dogruluguna yaptigi katkilardan dolayi Nobelle odullendirilmis bir adamin kendi dilinden hem konunun teknigi hem de tarihcesini herkesin anlayabilecegi bir dille anlattigi muthis bir yapit, kaynak. Gercegi arayanlarin mutlaka okumasi tavsiyesiyle...

This is a wonderful book. Part biography, part intellectual history, part first-rate survey of neuroscience. Or -perhaps- all biography, all intellectual history, all neuroscience. An intellectually and aesthetically beautiful work of a great mind and a phenomenal scientist. The joy of science, and the dark history of anti-semitism in Vienna, scientific triumphs and deaths of close friends and colleagues, inimitably clear descriptions of complicated scientific phenomena and the stories of their discovery, a child’s poem about sea slugs and a family at the Nobel prize ceremony - it’s all there in a beautiful portrait of one extraordinary scientist’s rich life.

Warning: this book can be a little dull in the autobiographical sections (which you are free to skim), and a bit challenging in some of the technical parts (particularly if you are new to the nuts and bolts of cognitive neuroscience). But if you're a cognitive neuroscience dork (like me) and you love reading about the history of science (like me), and if you are reading this book on an e-reader, so you can pop back and forth between the text and web based resources e.g. Wikipedia etc. (like me), than this book is amazing!

It's part autobiography of a son of a middle class Viennese toy merchant, who came to America as a child refugee from Nazi Germany, and went on to become a founder of a revolutionary new branch of science, and then was awarded a Nobel prize, and then kept going.

This book is also an account of the 150 year (+) emergence of neuroscience and its confluence with molecular biology, psychiatry, behaviorism and cognitive science (eventually to become its own sub discipline, cognitive neuroscience). Additionally, this book functions as a step by step primer (more or less a condensed text book) on the biological sub straights of learning and memory, beginning with the neuron doctrine, and proceeding up to our current cutting edge, without omitting any important steps along the way.

Lastly, this book serves a tacit function as an advice manual for young students who want to answer big questions (like what is consciousness), but really should begin by looking at small things (like neurons).

I think of this book as the ultimate supplemental reading (or refresher) for any bio psych, or cognitive psych course. It really fills in some of the big blanks and brings the data to life, making it more human and thusly, much more memorable (irony aside), and therefore, much more functional/useable.

If you have a real interest in the mind and brain (like me). And if you love to learn a subject both in the abstract, and from within a personal and historical context (like me), than I think you'll love this book.

Really good book that describes neuronal function from the ground up, and does so in a very easy to understand way. The one thing I did notice is that the book is semi autobiographical and I wasn’t expecting this. It doesn’t detract too much from its central purpose but even so, its a great book on the subject.

Qué soberbio relato! Una lección magistral de medicina, neurobiología, historia de la ciencia y cultura austriaca. Gracias a él, he vuelto a creer en el método científico como gran estimulador intelectual, y en la investigación empírica como proceso y estrategia fundamental para modular nuestra experiencia.

Eric Kandel pertenece al campo de la medicina, pero su pasión intelectual, su compromiso científico y su temeridad para transitar en las fronteras de la medicina, la filosofía, el psicoanálisis y la biología pura y dura, son una gran fuente de inspiración para cualquier persona curiosa.

Este libro, además, tiene la maravillosa virtud de explicar descubrimientos trascendentales sobre el funcionamiento del cerebro, a través de un lenguaje sencillo, claro y muy entretenido.

Gracias a Kandel, uno viaja desde los primeros experimentos neurofisiológicos del siglo XIX hasta la gigantesca revolución de Santiago Ramón y Cajal a principios del s.XX y los impresionantes descubrimientos de varias decenas de cientificos desde entonces. Pero no sólo eso. Kandel nos explica, con paciencia y claridad, porqué esas hazañas (que a veces comprenden sólo el descubrimiento de una molécula o de una onda eléctrica) son o fueron tan revolucionarias para toda la ciencia posterior.

Pero también, y quizá eso sea lo más relevante en términos legos, Eric Kandel compone un relato que va desde la dimensión sociohistórica (su origen judío y su huida de Austria durante la ocupación nazi) hasta sus descubrimientos moleculares en el sistema nervioso de un invertebrado, sus ingeniosos experimentos y el posterior viaje a Estocolmo a recibir el Premio Nobel, todo modulado y revestido de pertinentes reflexiones filosóficas y citas de grandes pensadores que, desde la Grecia Antigua, se interesaron por desentrañar los misterios que, poco a poco, la neurociencia de hoy intenta comprender.

Es, pues, la historia de una trayectoria intelectual que atestiguó y ayudó a gestar el nacimiento de un nuevo campo de investigación: la neurociencia.

Su propuesta, sin embargo, no es exclusivamente científica.

En buena cuenta, sus memorias son una excusa para propugnar una neurociencia humanista, que nunca olvide recoger lo mejor de las técnicas neurobiológicas y lo mejor del humanismo filosófico-psicoanalítico. Es decir, una neurociencia como continuadora científica del programa de Freud y de tantos otros pensadores y filósofos anteriores.

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Lo bueno es que el libro incluye gráficos e infografías.


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Léase con una buena taza de café ☕y con Leonard Cohen cantando 'Take this waltz'

I learned some real cool stuff about molecular biology in the brain, although later on he tended away from really explaining how things work, as the systems he was studying got more complex. All science autobiographies should be like this - the biography parts are minimal and don't distract from the important, science parts. I even understood why people would be into Freud and psychoanalysis!

Imagine sitting with Einstein as he describes visualizing riding on a beam of light. This work by Eric Kandel is a mix of reporting on one of the great chapters in the advancement and an autobiography of a child of the Holocaust. A truly great scientific mind expressing itself on the dual experience of the elevating intellectual and social aspects of scientific collaboration and the horrors of Socialistic pseudo -science. The book is in turn fascinating and painful to read. Quite engaging but probably best to read a few chapters at a time.

Simply stunning. What a marvellous travel and masterpiece! Kandel writes in an exceptional way, I would have never thought to be able to understand such "technical" neuroscience aspects, yet it was indeed possible thanks to his extremely clear and helpful voice. You truly feel like you're hearing a father's words, instructing you in the best way possible, as he make sure that he's telling you all the important stuff in such a pleasant understandable way. I am so impressed as to how he structured his memoir so perfectly letting the reader in in his life, giving you access to his most important life moments, but also smaller ones, in the exquisite telling of his story. In doing so the tragedy of Nazism and Austria's shameful "denied" role and participation appear as tsunamis, lucidly and wisely analysed by his mind. And between all of this, his absolutely mesmerising and world-changing neuroscience, along with the sciences of other estimated colleagues and friends, as well as other scientists, constitute the biggest bulk of his narration, a pure gem regarding also biology, psychotherapy, cognitive psychology. An incredible read, thank you Eric Kandel for your life!

A biography of the famous brain researcher Eric Kandel and his pioneering work in understanding the nerve cells of the brain. I think my lack of training in biology got the better of me on this book. I just got lost in the minutia.

In Search of Memory is half-memoir, half-pop-science, outlining the extraordinary life and scientific achievements of Eric Kandel. The most incredible aspect of reading this to me is that the book reads as if Eric Kandel is wrapping up his well-lived life, but to the contrary, most of my favorite work by Kandel was written after this book, including two remarkable, well-researched books that have shaped my interests and enjoyment of art as an adult.

This book does a great job describing the changes in neuroscience over the course of Kandel’s life. Eric Kandel has clearly made a massive impact in neuroscience (even if he did apparently lose the battle to call the field “neural science” despite using the term in his hugely influential textbook). What was amazing to me was how fundamental so many of these influences were. It is hard for me to imagine a time when psychoanalysis was basically synonymous with neural science, and Kandel does a great job explaining Freud’s impact but also where psychoanalysis went astray. It is also hard to imagine a time before people approached the neuroscience of learning and memory in a reductive way in simpler model organisms. It sounds both magical and daunting to imagine myself in Eric Kandel’s shoes choosing an animal to experiment on out of the entire animal kingdom.

Through his storytelling, I was so inspired to return to fundamentals in science. It’s easy to get caught up in the momentum of a scientific topic and not think very carefully about if the question is important or being addressed in the right way. Kandel’s approach seems so simple: pick a broad question that’s really interesting, figure out the best way to make progress, and learn everything you need to in order to do those experiments. It’s difficult to do in practice, especially now, but I also liked how Kandel emphasized the difficulties in his own path. Particularly striking to me was how all his mentors advised him not to change research topics as he moved into a new area to explore. Before, I just thought that it was just a lot easier to boldly explore new topics as a scientist 50 years ago, which I think to some extent is true (at least for white men like me), but Kandel’s narrative makes it clear that his path was not exactly encouraged. Just knowing that gives me more courage as a scientist.

There were plenty of technical goodies that I either forgot about or never learned in my neuroscience education. For example, I found the discussion on the prion-like properties of the RNA-binding protein, CPEB, fascinating. The proteins are converted into their self-perpetuating form, and control synapse-specific local protein synthesis which contributes to the persistence of memory.

I thought that Eric Kandel weaved together this autobiography and his science superbly, although I think this personal preference differed the most among people I talked to about the book. We read the book in our neuroscience book club, and some of the members found the autobiographical bits boring, but for me, I felt like Kandel knew exactly what aspects of his life I wanted to hear about! Overall, I thought this book is great, and I would especially recommend to aspiring scientists.