Changes

|title=In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

|author=Eric R Kandel

|date=April 2007

|isbn=978-0393329377

}}

When I went to study psychology, I was motivated by an unspecified but strong desire to learn how the human mind works: how reality is transformed into our perception of it, how we form judgements, attachments and beliefs, how we love and hate, how we think. Not very surprisingly, I learned nothing of the sort. Instead, I was shown, on one hand, a number of theories and frameworks more or less helpful in understanding the workings of human psyche on a general, abstract level: personality theories, social psychology concepts, cognitive models and so on. On the other hand, we studied the anatomy and basic physiology of the nervous system, we cut half heads of frogs and watched them jump in demonstration of the role of spinal cord, we also learned about neurological disorders, from stroke damage to Alzheimer's and epilepsy.