The Other Brain: The Scientific and Medical Breakthroughs That Will Heal Our Brains and Revolutionize Our Health - by: R. Douglas Fields, PH.D. (2009)

This was a very interesting book for me. It's about the current research into how the brain works. It expounds on new research that makes the old neuron model of the brain, that we all learned in high school, outdated.

It seems that neurons aren't the prime movers behind intelligence after all. Only 15% of the cells in our brains are neurons, the rest (85%)were previously ignored by neuroscientists as purely structural and support for the neurons. But the latest research shows that these glial ("glue") cells not only listen in on everything the neurons are doing, but they play a major role in determining what the neurons do (i.e. how they connect to each other, when and how often they fire, etc...).

This fascinates me because it fits perfectly with my own view of intelligence being a social phenomenon more than a logical one. The glia cells in our brains are like "little blue men" who make up a society that communicates over long distances using the neurons. It's like the glia are "people", and the neurons are their "Internet". Dr. Fields didn't go so far as to put it that way, but I think it makes perfect sense to do so based on everything else he says in this book.

Very fascinating indeed!