Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Neurosciences Graduate Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition which is affiliated with the Department of Psychology at UC San Diego. Ramachandran has authored several books that have garnered widespread public interest, including Phantoms In the Brain and The Tell-Tale Brain.

From his TED profile:

V.S. Ramachandran is a mesmerizing speaker, able to concretely and simply describe the most complicated inner workings of the brain. His investigations into phantom limb pain, synesthesia and other brain disorders allow him to explore (and begin to answer) the most basic philosophical questions about the nature of self and human consciousness.

In this TED talk from 2007,  Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between celebral tissue and the mind, using three startling delusions as examples.

photo: Brad Swonetz