1 The Delicate Pink Magisterium
The Child with Half a Brain • Life’s Other Secret • If You’re
Missing the Tool, Create It • An Ever-Changing System
2 Just Add World
How to Grow a Good Brain • Experience Necessary • Nature’s Great
Gamble
3 The Inside Mirrors the Outside
The Case of the Silver Spring Monkeys • The Afterlife of Lord
Horatio Nelson’s Right Arm • Timing Is Everything • Colonization Is
a Full-Time Business • The More the Better • Blindingly Fast • What
Does Dreaming Have to Do with the Rotation of the Planet? • As
Outside, So Inside
4 Wrapping Around the Inputs
The Planet-Winning Technology of the Potato Head • Sensory
Substitution • The One-Trick Pony • Eye Tunes • Good Vibrations •
Enhancing the Peripherals • Conjuring a New Sensorium • Imagining a
New Color • Are You Ready for a New Sensation?
5 How to Get a Better Body
Will the Real Doc Ock Please Raise His Hands? • No Standard
Blueprints • Motor Babbling • The Motor Cortex, Marshmallows, and
the Moon • Self-Control • Toys Are Us • One Brain, Infinite Body
Plans
6 Why Mattering Matters
The Motor Cortices of Perlman Versus Ashkenazy • Fashioning the
Landscape • Dogged • Allowing the Real Estate to Change • The Brain
of a Digital Native
7 Why Love Knows Not Its Own Depth Until the Hour of
Separation
A Horse in the River • Making Invisible the Expected • The
Difference Between What You Thought Would Happen and What Actually
Happened • Going Toward the Light. Or Sugar. Or Data. • Adjusting
to Expect the Unexpected
8 Balancing on the Edge of Change
When Haiti Disappears • How to Spread Drug Dealers Evenly • How
Neurons Expand Their Social Network • The Benefits of a Good Death
• Is Cancer an Expression of Plasticity Gone Awry? • Saving the
Brain Forest
9 Why Is It Harder to Teach Old Dogs New Tricks?
Born as Many • The Sensitive Period • Doors Close at Different
Rates • Still Changing After All These Years
10 Remember When
Talking to Your Future Self • The Enemy of Memory Is Not Time; It’s
Other Memories • Parts of the Brain Teach Other Parts • Beyond
Synapses • Daisy-Chaining a Range of Timescales • Many Kinds of
Memory • Modified by History
11 The Wolf and the Mars Rover
12 Finding Otzi’s Long-Lost Love
We Have Met the Shape-Shifters, and They Are Us
Acknowledgments
Notes
Further Reading
Index
Dr. DAVID EAGLEMAN is a neuroscientist and internationally
best-selling author. He teaches brain plasticity at Stanford
University, is the creator and host of the Emmy-nominated
television series The Brain, and is the CEO of Neosensory, a
company that builds the next generation of neuroscience hardware.
The author of seven previous books, Eagleman lives in Silicon
Valley in California.
"Masterful . . . Outstanding popular science."—Kirkus Reviews
(starred)
"An altogether fascinating tour of the astonishing plasticity and
interconnectedness inside the cranial cradle of all of our
experience of reality, animated by Eagleman’s erudite enthusiasm
for his subject, aglow with the ecstasy of sensemaking that comes
when the seemingly unconnected snaps into a consummate totality of
understanding."—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
"Vivid . . . Since the passing of Isaac Asimov, we haven’t had
a working scientist like Mr. Eagleman, who engages his ideas in
such a variety of modes. Livewired reads wonderfully like what a
book would be if it were written by Oliver Sacks and William
Gibson, sitting on Carl Sagan’s front lawn."—Wall Street
Journal
"Delivers an intellectually exhilarating look at neuroplasticity .
. . Eagleman’s skill as teacher, bold vision, and command of
current research will make this superb work a curious reader’s
delight."—Publishers Weekly (starred)
"David Eagleman, the Jolly Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience, makes
me believe that the universe of possibility required to create
utopia is already housed in each of our brains. His knowledge and
enthusiasm are intoxicating. His book demonstrates the principle
about which he is writing; my mind has been changed by his
words."—Russell Brand, Comedian & Activist
"There is much to extract from this fascinating work, that is
recommended for readers interested in neuroscience, technology, and
the intersection of the two."—Library
Journal (starred)
"The pages of Livewired are chockfull of mind bending ideas and
dazzling insights. Eagleman's infectious enthusiasm, his use
of fascinating anecdotes, and his clear, effortless prose render
the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling
page-turner. Livewired is a fun and whirlwind exploration of
the most complex thing in the universe."—Khaled Hosseini, author of
The Kite Runner
"Eagleman brings the subject to life in a way I haven’t seen other
writers achieve before.”—Clare Wilson, New Scientist
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