Deric Bownds

Welcome

This site archives my work from several decades of research and writing on the mind, brain, and human consciousness. It also describes my earlier laboratory studies done from 1963 through 1996 of how light changes into a nerve signal in our eyes, archives my piano performances, and contains my personal and family history.

Deric's MindBlog (2006 - present) - reports on new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior, as well as random curious stuff. 

Mind Lectures, Writings, and podcasts (1993 - present).

Selected Mind Lectures:

- New Perspectives on how our Minds Work (2022)

- How much can we change our aging? (2022)

- Upstairs/Downstairs in our brains - Who (or what) is running our show? (2019)

- Making our Brains Younger (2014)

- Are you holding your breath? - Structures of arousal and calm (2012)

- Making Minds - Evolving and Constructing the "I" (2011)

- The Beast Within (2003)

- The "I" Illusion (2002)

Biology of Mind Book
This book derived from my lectures in an interdisciplinary course that I developed in the 1990s while I was in a career transition from doing laboratory studies on the chemistry of vision to studying the evolution, development, and structures of our minds.

Studies of visual transduction in rod photoreceptor cells in the Bownds Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1963-1996) This research made foundational contributions to our understanding of biochemical steps in rod photoreceptor cells that link the absorption of photons of light by the visual pigment rhodopsin to the closing of ion channels in the plasma membrane that cause the nerve signal that is the first step in our visual experience.

Piano Performances, house concerts and public recitals. Gifted by genetics with an unusual ability to sightread piano music, I started performing in public at the age of 12 and continued doing this as an avocation into my ninth decade.

Personal history, and Ancestors and family history. After retiring from the University of Wisconsin in 2001 and a 12 year period (2005-2017) of being a snowbird between Madison, WI and Fort Lauderdale FL Len and I moved into the family house in Austin Texas where I grew up as our year round home.