The Rosetta Stone of the Human Mind: Three languages to integrate neurobiology and psychology (PDF)

by
Vincenzo Sanguineti, Sanguineti, Vincenzo R. SanguinetiVincenzo Sanguineti, Sanguineti, Vincenzo R. Sanguineti

I met Vincenzo Sanguineti at a crucial point of my career, when, after 20 years of involvement in biological research applied to psychiatric disorders, I startedtofeeltheemptinessandaridityofbiologicalexplanationsthat,besides the evidence of being incomplete and rough, lack, as Mandell stated, “the beautyandgenerativityofpremolecularresearch.”Irealizedthatmicroscopic dissectionhadbeenthemainobjectiveoftoomanyscientists,includingmyself, for too long and this attitude precluded us from developing a vision of the brainandofthemindintheirentirety.Obviously,Idonotrejectneuroscience, I am still a neuroscientist, but now I know that neuroscience can provide me onlywithmethodsandnotexplanations.MeetingVincenzoSanguinetiwasan event that shaped my next steps, a bifurcation point, and the ensuing results were very fruitful, in that we arranged together two courses at the national meetings of the American Psychiatric Association that were a great success. On those occasions I could appreciate his broad mind and deep knowledge of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry, and his expressed discomfortwiththecurrentexistenceofonlyafewtheoriesofthemindandthe factthatpsychoanalystsandneuroscientistsareoftentoodogmaticandclosed intheirownconvictionstobeableooperateinapositiveway. Therefore, I was not surprised when I received his new book,TheRosetta Stone to the Human Mind: Three Languages to Integrate Psychology and Neurobiology, because I knew that he cultivates the intent to explain the complexity of the mind from different perspectives that are not mutually exclusive. He shows that they simply represent the use of different languages todescribethesameentity. Obviously,thisbookisonlyanattempttodoso,andVincenzoSanguineti isverymodestandunderlinesthisaspect,butwithnodoubtitisaseriousand exhaustive attempt toward the holistic comprehension of that complexity that is the human mind. For this reason, probably, he forced himself to be simple, butnotsimplistic,sothatthebookmightbeunderstoodbybothneuroscientists x Foreword andpsychiatrists,comingastheydofromdifferentbackgrounds.Inaddition,it isfullofhistoricalandliteraryreferences,aswellasbeinginpartcenteredon themythofErosandPsyche,withfascinatingresults. DonatellaMarazziti Professor,DepartmentofPsychiatry,Neurobiology, PharmacologyandBiotechnology,UniversityofPisa. Director,LaboratoryofPsychopharmacology,UniversityofPisa.

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