ranstarr

coincidentally, i just (re)read a interesting book by one of my favourite authors entitled The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence...it covers quite a lot of the functions in the brain, mainly relating to the neocortex and the limbic system tho, but it had some interesting things to say about patients that had suffered lesions (severe in some cases, war casualties etc.) on the frontal lobe and how it affected their lives. ie..not much at all... "have almost no obvious effects on behaviour at all" (obviously complete frontal lobe removal results in vegetables). It also has a very interesting chapter relating to the capacity of apes, when taught american sign language, to engage in abstract thought (now that we could understand their thoughts with signing.). which *was* thought to separate man from beast, obviously it goes into a lot more detail..it was written in the late seventies i think...but i read something recently that remarked how accurate a lot of the concepts were....umm..anyways..its a good read...lol..umm..if your into that sort of thing....oooobviously only for dorks..which i am not...ok then..sorry for the long comment.