By Leonard Shlain Lyons Press, October 2014 He was the archetypal genius. A painter. A scientist. An inventor. An engineer. Even today, he remains the dictionary definition of a Renaissance man: Leonardo da?Vinci. In Leonardo’s Brain, surgeon and best-selling author Leonard Shlain undertakes a hypothetical dissection of the ancient master’s intellect, attributing the roots of his creativity to a particular arrangement of his gray and white matter. Da?Vinci’s brain must have functioned unlike any that came before or after, the author postulates, thanks in part to enhanced white-matter connections between his right and left hemispheres. Shlain applies modern neuroscience to probe one of history’s most innovative brains and uses da?Vinci as a lens through which to view the broader issues of brain organization, creativity, and ...
