Summary

“Looking into the Brain: The Neuroscience Revolution” begins with a pair of quotes, one from a scientist imagining what the function of the brain would look like; the other from a renowned athlete commenting that “you observe a lot by watching” (39). The author then introduces the chapter by summing up the advances in technology that enable the monitoring of brain activity; the development of a study he participated in designed to map brain activity during the recollection of trauma; and how the first tests (including the ones conducted on a traumatized woman named Marsha) showed the centers of the brain activated by traumatic memory). The author compares his experience of looking at the photographs of Marsha’s brain activity to those of astronomers who “peered through a telescope at a new constellation” (42).

In “Speechless Horror,” among the findings of...