About the Author Brain awareness is a worldwide programme, lasting for a week during March every year. With a view to enhance our understanding of the human brain, its normative functions as well as disorders, University of Calicut organized the programme in collaboration with the national Brain Research Centre, New Delhi in 2000 and in partnership with the European Dana Alliance for Brain (London) in 2001 and 2002. The programmes were coordinated by Dr. T Ramakrishna, Professor of Physiology, Dept. of Life Sciences. This Book on Brain, Language and Memory is an attempt to collate and synthesize information from diverse disciplines in order to understand brain and its functions including consciousness.

Preface Understanding consciousness is considered the greatest challenge by philosophers as well as physiologists. However modem science has its own goals, momentum, pace and methodology and therefore, we see accelerated efforts to understand consciousness through the understanding of brain. While such a goal may appear remote and not linked to the mundane problems of perturbations of the functions of the brain which may afflict and manifest in diseases such as Alzheimers, Schizophrenia and others, I am sure it is through such efforts that we might get closer towards understanding the disease processes and the eventual amelioration. I applaud the commendable efforts of Professor Ramakrishna to spread "Brain awareness" over the last three years, of which Human Brain- Essays on Awarenessthat he edited last year, and the book on Brain, Language and Memory that he authored this year, have been milestones. I appreciate the partnership of European Dana Alliance for Brain in these efforts.

I commend these books to anyone, interested in understanding brain and its functions including consciousness.

**Contents and Sample Pages**