In an attempt to resolve the paradox, Mr Gazzaniga locates the origin of personal responsibility outside the brain, as a consequence of a social contract between two or more individuals.

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This exquisite malleability ensures that our unique, personal experiences provide us with a customized brain with its own highly individualized sets of circuits, switches and connections.

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Mr. Parris, who is also a practicing personal-injury attorney, says he got interested in ways to affect brain chemistry because he wanted to be more persuasive in court.

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The "beholder's share" is a deeply personal, socially shaped, active experience rather than the programmed response of brain circuitry that we share with creatures whose entire lives are subordinated to ensuring the replication of the genetic material for which they are vehicles.

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While many patients now seek support through online chat rooms, face-to-face groups have the advantage of "the warmth and closeness that can develop when people interact on a personal level, " says Ruth Diab Lederer, a program manager at the American Brain Tumor Association.

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It is very personal, even bringing in the death of Mr. Hofstadter's wife due to brain cancer.

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That was one second slower than his personal record in the 26.2-mile event, set days before he underwent brain surgery in early 2011.

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