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Leonardo's Brain, The Future of the Brain, Dodging Extinction, and Arrival of the Fittest

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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 ...

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Meet the Author

  • Bob Grant

    From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.

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