Dark and Magical Places
By Christopher Kemp
The Neuroscience of Navigation. W. W. Norton and Company, 2022.
Summary of Dark and Magical Places book by Christopher Kemp
A vibrant and often amusing investigation into navigation, and how are brains are constructed—some better than others—not only to get us from one place to another but to build an entire model of the physical world inside the mind.
Chapters in Dark and Magical Places book summary
What do you get from this book? A knowledgeable guide through the maze of the neuroscience of navigation
Navigation is a far more complex mental process than it seems, requiring us to draw on all forms of memory
Building a cognitive map of our environment is crucial to effective navigation, but not everyone is capable of it
Neuroscience is revealing the role each component of the brain plays in successfully navigating and building cognitive maps
Head-direction cells act as an internal compass, helping us position ourselves on our mental maps
Underpinning navigation is our ability to generate symbols, which gave us a crucial evolutionary edge over Neanderthals
Path integration allows our bodies to keep track of where we’ve travelled, enabling us to retrace our steps
Brain damage can deprive us of our navigation skills, but some are born without them at all
Our brains are affected by our experiences, as demonstrated by the damage GPS does to our navigation skills
Summary of the key insights
Selected critiques in brief
Final word
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Dark and Magical Places — Book Summary Snapshot
Who should read Dark and Magical Places book
- Amateur neurologists
- philosophers
- lovers of an unusual tale
- those looking to understand the brain
- the perpetually lost
About the author of Dark and Magical Places
Christopher Kemp
Christopher Kemp is a molecular biologist at the University of Michigan, specializing in degenerative disease in the brain, particularly Parkinson’s. His other books include Floating Gold (2012) and The Lost Species (2017).
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