The Body Has A Mind of Its Own

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12/21/2007

Dec. 21, 2007

The Body Has A Mind of Its Own

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Maps aren't just for picking the best way to drive to grandma's house. Your brain and body use 'maps' to translate incoming sensory signals into meaningful information, and to translate brain signals for things like movement into controlled motion. How your body sees itself -- and the world around it -- through these maps may have a big influence on how it behaves. In this segment, Ira talks with science writers Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee about their new book The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better, and about the idea of 'body maps' and their role in connecting the body and brain.

Produced by Annette Heist, Senior Producer

Guests

Sandra Blakeslee

Co-author, "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own:How Body Maps in Your Brain Help
You do (Almost) Everything Better" (Random House, 2007)

Contributing Writer, New York Times

Albuquerque, New Mexico
Matthew Blakeslee

Co-author, "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own:How Body Maps in Your Brain Help
You do (Almost) Everything Better" (Random House, 2007)

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dec. 21, 2007