ABSTRACT

Reflections of a Neuropsychologist: Brushes with Brains follows the life of an influential neuropsychologist's fascinating and varied career. Unique in its autobiographical approach, it features coverage of research into human evolution, archaeology and neurology.

Beginning with his earliest memories (and implications for memory processes), John L. Bradshaw reflects on his archaeological expeditions preceding his primary career as a physiological psychologist and a behavioural neuroscientist. His influential research covers such rare neurological disorders as Huntington’s disease, Friedreich ataxia and Williams syndrome, and more common maladies like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, stroke, Fragile X, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, schizophrenia, autism and depression.

His fascinating personal experiences illustrating scientific discoveries will entertain, enthuse, encourage and inspire, and provide established research scientists and practising clinicians with a unique road map.

chapter 1|10 pages

The evolution of all things

chapter 2|5 pages

Tools

Tacit and tactual symbols of civilisation

chapter 3|8 pages

Art, graffiti, juvenilia or Kilroy?

chapter 4|10 pages

Language

What tales the tongue may tell

chapter 5|5 pages

The child is father to the man

chapter 6|6 pages

The Old Forge and my first school

chapter 9|8 pages

Sticking up like a sore thumb

Hitch-hiking

chapter 10|5 pages

An industrious interlude and industrial interval

ICI

chapter 11|7 pages

An ugly picture in a beautiful frame

chapter 12|6 pages

The Golden Road, or a shot in the dark

chapter 13|5 pages

Eyes, a window to your thoughts

chapter 14|6 pages

Aotearoa

A year in the land of the long white cloud

chapter 15|13 pages

Terra Australis (nobis adhuc) incognita

chapter 16|11 pages

Commissural connectivity

chapter 17|4 pages

Harry McGurk, read my lips

Ventriloquism

chapter 18|5 pages

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Symmetrical stimuli and bimanual responses

chapter 19|6 pages

Consciousness, will and time

chapter 20|5 pages

When ignorance is bliss

chapter 21|5 pages

I didn’t think I had noticed it

Unconscious processing

chapter 22|6 pages

When recognition fails

Agnosia

chapter 23|5 pages

Phantom legs and neglected arms

chapter 24|7 pages

Is your Tuesday green?

Synaesthesia

chapter 25|5 pages

Bodily integrity and identity

Is it really me?

chapter 26|5 pages

Empathy for pain and mirror neurons

chapter 27|4 pages

Stop it, it tickles

Why you can’t tickle yourself

chapter 29|5 pages

Parkinson’s disease

When go turns to slow

chapter 30|3 pages

Musicians’ dystonia

A brain out of tune

chapter 32|8 pages

Fun, fraud and fabrication

What a tangled web we weave

chapter 33|9 pages

A god of the gaps and dental distress

chapter 34|6 pages

The little brain

chapter 35|5 pages

The magician’s apprentice

Back to basics

chapter 36|8 pages

STROKE

The hour that struck

chapter 37|11 pages

I’m as old as I feel

chapter 38|2 pages

Where to now?

Some forward-looking afterthoughts