Within the last couple of decades the study of the human brain has advanced rapidly, with discoveries that both have shaped new scientific paradigms and those that have toppled them. One of the more remarkable discoveries has been that of the plasticity of the brain. Contrary to what I was taught in college, when a part of the brain is destroyed, the brain can actually rewire itself to make use of healthy parts to serve the functions once served by the parts destroyed. Brain scientists have learned much also about the ways in which the brain changes as we perceive, learn, and remember. Much has been learned, and there is still much to be discovered, about the ways in which the imaginative-spatial right lobe and the analytical left lobe process stimuli as we understand, intuit, and emote. Brain science therefore can contribute much toward the development of forms of knowledge that integrate, rather than isolate, the rational from the emotional, the analytical from the imaginative.

Ginger Campbell is an MD with a passion for keeping up with the latest discoveries and theories in brain science. She has produced the Brain Science podcast for several years now, as a labor of love. She reads all the current books on the subject, summarizes them for the lay audience, and interviews the authors with well-informed questions and lucid observations. Even aside from the podcasts, her website is a treasure trove of information about this fast-evolving field: The Brain Science Podcast.