(MIT Press) In this collection of essays, the author uses episodes from the past to illustrate the study of the brain – from the history of trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull) to neurosurgery as painted by Hieronymus Bosch to the discovery that bats navigate with echolocation. Connecting ancient practices to recent developments and controversies, he ranges over the blind allies and errors as well as the triumphs and discoveries. Gross is a neuroscientist specializing in vision and the functions of the cerebral cortex. He is professor of psychology at Princeton University, and the author of Vision, Brain, Memory: Tales in the History of Neuroscience .
