2. Brains and Prains: Brains (or Not) in Animals from Sponges to Us

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS v
3. PREFACE vii
4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii
5. 1. The Brainless Majority: Sensing the Environment in Organisms without Brains 1
6. 2. Brains and Prains: Brains (or Not) in Animals from Sponges to Us 15
7. 3. The Monkey’s Unculus: Tactile and Balance Sensory Capacity in Animals 27
8. 4. A Matter of Taste (and Odorant) Receptors: Smell and Taste Reception in Animals 41
9. 5. All Ears (and Eyes): Animal Hearing and Sight 57
10. 6. Supersmellers and Supertasters: The Limits of Smell and Taste in Humans 66
11. 7. Where Am I? The Limits of Hearing and Balance in Humans 85
12. 8. Touchy Feely: Touch and How It Is Linked to Other Senses 99
13. 9. The Eyes Have It: The Limits of Sight in Humans 108
14. 10. Accidents Will Happen: Traumatic Brain Injury and the Impact on Our Senses 122
15. 11. Modern Life, Strokes, and the Senses: The Impact of Strokes and Other Brain Damage on Sensory Capacity 139
16. 12. Full/Half/Split Brains: People with Unique Brains 149
17. 13. Team of Rivals Meets the Kluge: Making Sense Out of Crossmodal Stimuli from the Outer World 160
18. 14. Neural Detritus: Making Sense Out of a Noisy Environment 172
19. 15. Pani ca’ Meusa, Crème Brûlée, and Synesthesia: Crossmodal Impact on Taste and Synesthesia 185
20. 16. Connectomes: How Crossmodal Interactions Work in the Brain 205
21. 17. Faces and Hallucinations: Facial Recognition and Hallucinations as Subjects in Higher Perception 217
22. 18. Bob Dylan’s Nobel: Language, Literacy, and How the Senses Interact to Produce Literature 230
23. 19. Facing the Music: The Neurobiology of Music and Art 241
24. 20. No Limits: The Limits to What We Can Sense and the Future of Our Senses 256
25. Literature and Further Reading 265
26. INDEX 281