Brain Metabolism and Cerebral Disorders

The author of this book takes for granted that the brain is a chemical machine. To the uninitiated, it may come as a shock to learn that the brain is not as different from muscle as muscle is from the liver. In this era in which psychosomatic medicine receives so much emphasis, it is hard to believe that what we are, what we think, and what we do depends on a great deal of highly complicated chemistry. This view may seem unsatisfactory and unprofitable to some, but it is the correct view for the modern scientific physician, and it becomes increasingly profitable as new techniques are developed for observing the minute and rapid changes that occur in the chemistry of the cerebral neurons. For the first time, we are in possession of sufficiently refined tools to provide an inside view of brain function. The electron and the radioactive tracer are