Featured in this episode: The Body has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better (2007), by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee. (Also available on from Audible.com)

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SHOW NOTES

Topics:

Body Maps and the role of embodiment

Basic ideas about the body maps in the brain

Mapping the world around us

How Body maps differ between species

Body Schema and Body image

The role of body maps in disease

The role of belief in health and illness

How body maps explain non-traditional healing methods and unusual experiences

The role of motor imagery in improving motor skills

Mirror Neurons

Place and grid neurons in the hippocampus (see more on Scholarpedia)

How sensation and emotions come together (the role of the insula)

Scientists mentioned in the podcast:

Wilder Penfield: discovered the maps of the primary sensory and primary motor cortex

Sir Henry Head and Gordon Holmes: British neurologists who first proposed the idea of the body schema in 1911

Arthur Craig: first to study the unique wiring of the insula.

Antonio Damasio: studies the role of emotion in intelligent decision-making

Marco Iacoboni: demonstrated the role of the right angular cingulate gyrus in our sense of self versus others (Dr. Iacoboni has PDF's available on his site)

Other scientists mentioned in The Body has a Mind of Its Own:

William Straub: sports psychologist who demonstrated that students could improve at darts through mental imagery

Alvaro Pascual-Leone: used 5 finger piano exercise to show changes in motor maps both from actual practice and from imagery

Michael Merzenich: classic experiments showing changing in motor maps in monkeys

Scott Frey: using imagery in stroke rehab

Jennifer Stevens: use of mirror boxes in stroke rehab

Edoardo Bisiach: theories about spatial awareness and neglect

Jamie Ward: documented a patient with color-emotion synesthesia as possible explanation for auras

Olaf Blanke: studies the anterior cingulate gyrus, which map be important in out-of-body experiences

Atsushi Iriki: has demonstrated how the parietal lobes in monkeys change with tool use

Christian Keysters: thinks mirror neurons may be a key precursor for the development of abstract thought and language

Hugo Critchley: expert in brain imaging who is interested in the relationship between emotional intelligence and interoception (visceral awareness)

John Allman: studies the role of the frontal insula and anterior cingulate gyrus in intuition (quick decisions)

Sara Lazar: has demontrated that the right frontal insula and left prefrontal cortex increase in size in experienced meditators (more on her meditation research)

Note: This list is not exhaustive. I know I left off VS Ramachandran and several others, but those listed above did work that was addressed, directly or indirectly, in my podcast.

Brain Structures (links include diagrams of the brain):