Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran gave a talk in March on how some startling syndromes tell us about how the normal brain works. It’s just been put online and is available as a wonderfully produced video lecture.
To be perfectly honest, Ramachandran largely trots out the same stuff he talked about in his 1999 book Phantoms in the Brain (ISBN 1857028953) and covered in his 2003 BBC Reith lectures.
If you’ve not encountered any of these before, check the video, as he’s a brilliant and engaging speaker and you will thoroughly enjoy the journey.
My only slight niggles (apart from the repetition) are his suggesting that the Capgras delusion is rare, when in fact it’s relatively common in psychosis linked to dementia, and suggesting that the ‘textbooks’ give a Freudian account, when these were uncommon even before the now-standard explanation – based on a disruption to face recognition processes in the brain.
Link to TED Ramachandran lecture.
Mind Hacks 