Vilayanur Subramanian "Rama" Ramachandran is a remarkable man. A neuroscientist and professor at the University of California, San Diego, Ramachandran is also a very curious man. He is curious about what truly makes us human. He devoted his career to answering questions such as: What is consciousness? Where did language come from? What is introspection? Why do we all have a unitary perception of beauty? and the list could go on.

In order to find answers to all these questions, Ramachandran turned to illness. And not to any illness. He studied some of the weirdest neurological syndromes in the world - people with Capgras syndrome (who believe their mother is some look-alike robot) or with Cotard syndrome (who believe they are dead); he studied people with "phantom limbs" (having pain in their non-existent amputated limbs) as well as people who had out of body experiences.

He looked for answers in the depths of illness and wrote several books about his amazing journey. The latest one, definitely worth reading, is The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes US Human. The book is filled with countless fascinating case studies and Rama's conclusions are, more often than not, surprising and counter-intuitive. If you don't have time to read it all, you can at least read a great review of this book here.

Ramachandran shows, once more, that our brain is like a treasure chest filled with the most amazing secrets. It's hard to believe that one can ever grow tired exploring its mysteries.

Here is his great speech at TED, where he gives us a glimpse into his fascinating research. I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did: