This is a book review
                           commissioned by the New
                           York Times Book Review in
                           1992, which they did not print
                           for space reasons.  WHC


MEMORY'S VOICE
Deciphering the Mind-Brain Code
By Daniel L. Alkon
Illustrated.  320 pp.
New York:  HarperCollins $22.50

By WILLIAM H. CALVIN
      co-author of Conversations with Neil's Brain:  The Neural
      Nature of Thought and Language (Addison-Wesley 1994)

No longer do scientists have to write their own popular books of
exposition, in the manner of Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. 
Science journalists have proved increasingly competent and we get,
in the bargain, some excellent sketches of the personalities of the
prime players, serving to flesh out the science.  There have been
several such books about advances in memory research.  Memory
loss is, after all, filling nursing homes with Alzheimer's patients;
better memories are what every student wants; unreliable
eyewitness memories can cause tragic miscarriages of justice; an
inability to ignore memories of trauma can emotionally cripple.  
      But scientists still need to write for general readers:  we can
better describe how we think, convey the rich intellectual heritage
that we absorbed from our teachers, describe what came to motivate
us, recount the joys of discovery and the everyday pleasures of a
life in science.  The classic first-person description of a scientific
chase, preserving immaturity, insights, and personality clashes for
all to see, is still _The Double Helix_ about genetic memories. 
Now we have a first-person account about the search for neural
memories.
      Dan Alkon's book is not as autobiographical as Jim
Watson's, but it is a refreshing tale of how brain research is done
and what motivates researchers.  It is surely candid:  "I had a
hidden agenda as I teased apart neuronal networks.... I scrutinized
blueprints of neural circuits with radical notions of revolutionizing
psychotherapy.... Naive, presumptuous dreams combined mission
with a touch of madness." [p.168]
      Insights from Alkon's medical-student days, or tales about
the family rabbit, are typically used at the beginning and end of
chapters, bracketing an exposition.  The prison of memories
experienced by an abused childhood friend is a recurring theme: 
"[Our most human feature is] the ability to act not for the moment,
in response to impulse, but within an entire framework constructed
from remembered experience.  Unlike any other animal, we can
mentally try out our behavioral scenarios, consider their possible
outcomes, and with conscious awareness, make the choice of
greatest advantage.  It was this process of considered choice that
became lost to Michelle." [p.241].
      You eventually understand where Alkon "comes from": 
what his emotional drives were like, what mistakes he learned from,
why his experiences with patients led him to work long hours with
sea slugs, rabbits, and computer models.  And what some of the
attractions are:  "I inserted [needle-like microelectrodes into nerve
cells] day after day, year after year, and never tired of it.  It's like
being invited to a secret club where the most delicious gossip is
discussed.... There is drama in a burst of big flashes across the
recording screen.  The flashes can be transformed into sounds so
that the signals beat out a rhythm for the spellbound listener."
[p.86]
      Alkon also provides a better overview of the contributions
of others, past and present, to memory research than the science
journalist books.  "Though Freud himself made few measurements,
his weltanschauung encouraged measurements.  It said look for
centers in the brain that when stimulated will convey the experience
of pleasure.  Discover brain regions responsible for directing
attention to some thoughts and not others.  Tease out the
physiology that inhibits the neuronal activity of traumatic
memories.  Reveal what happens when the brain is asleep and
begins to dream.  And, perhaps most of all, find out what an
association means in terms of the electrical signals, structure, and
internal molecules of neurons." [p.44]
      A common mistake, made by scientists as well as
journalists, is to see two different lines of memory research as
competing explanations rather than as complementary approaches --
and, like a ball game, to judge "who's ahead."  Alkon has long
been seen as heading up one side of such a rivalry of Nobel
proportions; although he says rather little about it directly, and is
quite generous to his "competitor", many neuroscientists will be
able to read between the lines and sense the pain that this false
dichotomy has caused.  They are likely to lament the lost
opportunities for cross-fertilization.  A significant strength of this
book is that readers can see for themselves how complementary the
use-dependent and the associative-memory approaches have
become.  Alkon's work spans not only the molecular and cellular
investigations, but also the artificial neural networks that can learn
to recognize faces and hand-printed letters; hopeful technologists
will want to read the book for ideas.
      The reader is left with the feeling of knowing the author,
faults and all, of having glimpsed the personalities of the scientists
who shaped him.  Dan Alkon, as well as his science, is a "work in
progress" and many readers will want a sequel to this engaging
account.

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