Download or read book What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite written by David Disalvo and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reveals a remarkable paradox: what your brain wants is frequently not what your brain needs. In fact, much of what makes our brains "happy" leads to errors, biases, and distortions, which make getting out of our own way extremely difficult. Author David DiSalvo presents evidence from evolutionary and social psychology, cognitive science, neurology, and even marketing and economics. And he interviews many of the top thinkers in psychology and neuroscience today. From this research-based platform, DiSalvo draws out insights that we can use to identify our brains’ foibles and turn our awareness into edifying action. Ultimately, he argues, the research does not serve up ready-made answers, but provides us with actionable clues for overcoming the plight of our advanced brains and, consequently, living more fulfilled lives.
Download or read book The Neuroscience of You written by Chantel Prat and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From University of Washington professor Chantel Prat comes The Neuroscience of You, a rollicking adventure into the human brain that reveals the surprising truth about neuroscience, shifting our focus from what’s average to an understanding of how every brain is different, exactly why our quirks are important, and what this means for each of us. With style and wit, Chantel Prat takes us on a tour of the meaningful ways that our brains are dissimilar from one another. Using real-world examples, along with take-them-yourself tests and quizzes, she shows you how to identify the strengths and weakness of your own brain, while learning what might be going on in the brains of those who are unlike you. With sections like “Focus,” “Navigate,” and “Connect,” The Neuroscience of You helps us see how brains that are engineered differently ultimately take diverse paths when it comes time to prioritize information, use what they’ve learned from experience, relate to other people, and so much more. While other scientists focus on how “the” brain works “on average,” Prat argues that our obsession with commonalities has slowed our progress toward understanding the very things that make each of us unique and interesting. Her field-leading research, employing cutting-edge technology, reveals the truth: Complicated as it may be, no two brains are alike. And individual differences in brain functioning are as pervasive as they are fundamental to defining what “normal” looks like. Adages such as, “I’m not wired that way” intuitively point to the fact that the brains we’re piloting, educating, and parenting are wonderfully distinct, explaining a whole host of phenomena, from how easily a person might learn a second language in adulthood to whether someone feels curious or threatened when faced with new information. This book invites the reader to understand themselves and others by zooming in so close that we all look gray and squishy.
Download or read book The Root of Thought written by Andrew Koob and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2009-06-03 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until recently, neuroscientists thought glial cells did little more than hold your brain together. But in the past few years, they've discovered that glial cells are extraordinarily important. In fact, they may hold the key to understanding intelligence, treating psychiatric disorders and brain injuries and perhaps even curing fatal conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Lou Gehrig's Disease. In The Root of Thought, leading neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Koob reveals what we've learned about these remarkable cells, from their unexpected role in information storage to their function as adult stem cells that can keep your brain growing and adapting longer than scientists ever imagined possible. Ranging from fruit flies to Einstein, Koob reveals the surprising correlation between intelligence and the brain's percentage of glial cells - and why these cells' unique wavelike communications may be especially conducive to the fluid information processing human beings depend upon. You'll learn how crucial glial cells grow and develop... why almost all brain tumors are comprised of glial cells and the potential implications for treatment... even the apparent role of glial cells in your every thought and dream!
Download or read book Fall or Dodge in Hell written by Neal Stephenson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 1051 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Seveneves, Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon returns with a wildly inventive and entertaining science fiction thriller—Paradise Lost by way of Philip K. Dick—that unfolds in the near future, in parallel worlds. In his youth, Richard “Dodge” Forthrast founded Corporation 9592, a gaming company that made him a multibillionaire. Now in his middle years, Dodge appreciates his comfortable, unencumbered life, managing his myriad business interests, and spending time with his beloved niece Zula and her young daughter, Sophia. One beautiful autumn day, while he undergoes a routine medical procedure, something goes irrevocably wrong. Dodge is pronounced brain dead and put on life support, leaving his stunned family and close friends with difficult decisions. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Legally bound to follow the directive despite their misgivings, Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived. In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife—the Bitworld—is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem . . . Fall, or Dodge in Hell is pure, unadulterated fun: a grand drama of analog and digital, man and machine, angels and demons, gods and followers, the finite and the eternal. In this exhilarating epic, Neal Stephenson raises profound existential questions and touches on the revolutionary breakthroughs that are transforming our future. Combining the technological, philosophical, and spiritual in one grand myth, he delivers a mind-blowing speculative literary saga for the modern age.
Download or read book Hallucinations written by Oliver Sacks and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication--even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
Download or read book Shadows Bright as Glass written by Amy Ellis Nutt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a sunny fall afternoon in 1988, Jon Sarkin was playing golf when, without a whisper of warning, his life changed forever. As he bent down to pick up his golf ball, something strange and massive happened inside his head; part of his brain seemed to unhinge, to split apart and float away. For an utterly inexplicable reason, a tiny blood vessel, thin as a thread, deep inside the folds of his gray matter had suddenly shifted ever so slightly, rubbing up against his acoustic nerve. Any noise now caused him excruciating pain. After months of seeking treatment to no avail, in desperation Sarkin resorted to radical deep-brain surgery, which seemed to go well until during recovery his brain began to bleed and he suffered a major stroke. When he awoke, he was a different man. Before the stroke, he was a calm, disciplined chiropractor, a happily married husband and father of a newborn son. Now he was transformed into a volatile and wildly exuberant obsessive, seized by a manic desire to create art, devoting virtually all his waking hours to furiously drawing, painting, and writing poems and letters to himself, strangely detached from his wife and child, and unable to return to his normal working life. His sense of self had been shattered, his intellect intact but his way of being drastically altered. His art became a relentless quest for the right words and pictures to unlock the secrets of how to live this strange new life. And what was even stranger was that he remembered his former self. In a beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Ellis Nutt interweaves Sarkin’s remarkable story with a fascinating tour of the history of and latest findings in neuroscience and evolution that illuminate how the brain produces, from its web of billions of neurons and chaos of liquid electrical pulses, the richness of human experience that makes us who we are. Nutt brings vividly to life pivotal moments of discovery in neuroscience, from the shocking “rebirth” of a young girl hanged in 1650 to the first autopsy of an autistic savant’s brain, and the extraordinary true stories of people whose personalities and cognitive abilities were dramatically altered by brain trauma, often in shocking ways. Probing recent revelations about the workings of creativity in the brain and the role of art in the evolution of human intelligence, she reveals how Jon Sarkin’s obsessive need to create mirrors the earliest function of art in the brain. Introducing major findings about how our sense of self transcends the bounds of our own bodies, she explores how it is that the brain generates an individual “self” and how, if damage to our brains can so alter who we are, we can nonetheless be said to have a soul. For Jon Sarkin, with his personality and sense of self permanently altered, making art became his bridge back to life, a means of reassembling from the shards of his former self a new man who could rejoin his family and fashion a viable life. He is now an acclaimed artist who exhibits at some of the country’s most prestigious venues, as well as a devoted husband to his wife, Kim, and father to their three children. At once wrenching and inspiring, this is a story of the remarkable human capacity to overcome the most daunting obstacles and of the extraordinary workings of the human mind.
Download or read book Science and the Navy written by Harvey M. Sapolsky and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing all those interested in the history of American science and concerned with its future, a leading scholar of public policy explains how and why the Office of Naval Research became the first federal agency to support a wide range of scientific work in universities. Harvey Sapolsky shows that the ONR functioned as a "surrogate national science foundation" between 1946 and 1950 and argues that its activities emerged not from any particularly enlightened position but largely from a bureaucratic accident. Once involved with basic research, however, the ONR challenged a Navy skeptical of the value of independent scientific advice and established a national security rationale that gave American science its Golden Age. Eventually, the ONR's autonomy was worn away in bureaucratic struggles, but Sapolsky demonstrates that its experience holds lessons for those who are committed to the effective management of science and interested in the ability of scientists to choose the directions for their research. As military support for basic research fades, scientists are discovering that they are unprotected from the vagaries of distributive politics. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Train Your Mind Change Your Brain written by Sharon Begley and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-11-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cutting-edge science and the ancient wisdom of Buddhism have come together to reveal that, contrary to popular belief, we have the power to literally change our brains by changing our minds. Recent pioneering experiments in neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change in response to experience—reveal that the brain is capable of altering its structure and function, and even of generating new neurons, a power we retain well into old age. The brain can adapt, heal, renew itself after trauma, compensate for disabilities, rewire itself to overcome dyslexia, and break cycles of depression and OCD. And as scientists are learning from studies performed on Buddhist monks, it is not only the outside world that can change the brain, so can the mind and, in particular, focused attention through the classic Buddhist practice of mindfulness. With her gift for making science accessible, meaningful, and compelling, science writer Sharon Begley illuminates a profound shift in our understanding of how the brain and the mind interact and takes us to the leading edge of a revolution in what it means to be human. Praise for Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain “There are two great things about this book. One is that it shows us how nothing about our brains is set in stone. The other is that it is written by Sharon Begley, one of the best science writers around. Begley is superb at framing the latest facts within the larger context of the field. This is a terrific book.”—Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers “Excellent . . . elegant and lucid prose . . . an open mind here will be rewarded.”—Discover “A strong dose of hope along with a strong does of science and Buddhist thought.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune
Download or read book How God Changes Your Brain written by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2009-03-24 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God is great—for your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Based on new evidence culled from brain-scan studies, a wide-reaching survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences, and the authors’ analyses of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and therapist Mark Robert Waldman offer the following breakthrough discoveries: • Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process. • Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety and depression and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love. • Fundamentalism, in and of itself, can be personally beneficial, but the prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain. • Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain, altering your values and the way you perceive reality. Both a revelatory work of modern science and a practical guide for readers to enhance their physical and emotional health, How God Changes Your Brain is a first-of-a-kind book about faith that is as credible as it is inspiring.
Download or read book Essential Neuroscience written by Allan Siegel and published by LWW. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher's Note: Products purchased from 3rd Party sellers are not guaranteed by the Publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. Essential Neuroscience integrates must-have neuroscience information with clinical and physiological considerations to help readers master the fundamentals of neuroscience and prepare for board and course exams. Acclaimed for its concise, clinically relevant coverage, this student-friendly book uses a stepwise approach that starts with the basic building blocks of neural anatomy and expands to cover structures and functions, the interaction of systems, and the science of clinical disorders. A well-balanced mix of anatomy, physiology, biology, and biochemistry helps students increase their conceptual understanding of the subject matter and prepare for practice. Vividly illustrated and rich with clinical case studies, summary tables, a glossary of key terms, and comprehensive USMLE-style review questions, this accessible resource fosters the understanding essential to students' success on their exams and in clinical practice. Updated coverage familiarizes you with the latest clinical practices and approaches. Full-color illustrations clarify anatomic structures and complex processes. CT images and MRIs demonstrate radiologic anatomy and present conditions in a clinically relevant context. Clinical Cases enhance your clinical application capabilities and help you confidently manage commonly encountered conditions. Chapter Outlines and Summary Tables emphasize essential content and maximize your study time. Glossary defines bolded key terms at a glance. USMLE-style Review Questions with detailed explanations challenge your understanding and prepare you to excel on course and board exams.
Download or read book The Accidental Mind written by David J. Linden and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You've probably seen it before: a human brain dramatically lit from the side, the camera circling it like a helicopter shot of Stonehenge, and a modulated baritone voice exalting the brain's elegant design in reverent tones. To which this book says: Pure nonsense. In a work at once deeply learned and wonderfully accessible, the neuroscientist David Linden counters the widespread assumption that the brain is a paragon of design--and in its place gives us a compelling explanation of how the brain's serendipitous evolution has resulted in nothing short of our humanity. A guide to the strange and often illogical world of neural function, The Accidental Mind shows how the brain is not an optimized, general-purpose problem-solving machine, but rather a weird agglomeration of ad-hoc solutions that have been piled on through millions of years of evolutionary history. Moreover, Linden tells us how the constraints of evolved brain design have ultimately led to almost every transcendent human foible: our long childhoods, our extensive memory capacity, our search for love and long-term relationships, our need to create compelling narrative, and, ultimately, the universal cultural impulse to create both religious and scientific explanations. With forays into evolutionary biology, this analysis of mental function answers some of our most common questions about how we've come to be who we are.
Download or read book Stress the Aging Brain and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death written by Robert M. Sapolsky and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1992 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking beyond the now widely recognized relationships between stress and physical illness, this accessible and engagingly written book suggests that stress and stress-related hormones can also endanger the brain.
Download or read book How the Brain Works written by Michael S.C. Thomas and published by SAGE Publications Limited. This book was released on 2023-10-18 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delve into the intricacies of the human mind with this engaging and insightful guide to how the brain works. Written in a playful style and beautifully illustrated, this book is designed to support you as you embark on the beginning of your psychology degree. It provides an accessible guide to how the brain’s structures and functions determine how the mind works, and how this fits into the bigger picture of our evolution and biology as a species. From focus boxes that delve into specific topics to entertaining puzzles that bring the subject to life, this book will captivate your imagination while building your understanding of biological and cognitive psychology. This is an essential read for undergraduate psychology students. Michael S.C. Thomas is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London. Simon Green is a Chartered Psychologist and retired Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London.
Download or read book Hardwiring Happiness written by Rick Hanson, PhD and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2016-12-27 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Hanson's four steps, you can counterbalance your brain's negativity bias and learn to hardwire happiness in only a few minutes each day. Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences and slowly from good ones, but you can change this. Life isn’t easy, and having a brain wired to take in the bad and ignore the good makes us worried, irritated, and stressed, instead of confident, secure, and happy. But each day is filled with opportunities to build inner strengths and Dr. Rick Hanson, an acclaimed clinical psychologist, shows what you can do to override the brain’s default pessimism. Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. You’ll learn to see through the lies your brain tells you. Dr. Hanson’s four steps build strengths into your brain to make contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In just minutes a day, you can transform your brain into a refuge and power center of calm and happiness.
Download or read book Idiot Brain What Your Head Is Really Up To written by Dean Burnett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Entertaining…[A] grand tour around modern cognitive science and psychology." —Wall Street Journal The brain is an absolute marvel—the seat of our consciousness, the pinnacle (so far) of evolutionary progress, and the engine of human experience. But it’s also messy, fallible, and about 50,000 years out of date. We cling to superstitions, remember faces but not names, miss things sitting right in front of us, and lie awake at night while our brains endlessly replay our greatest fears. Idiot Brain is for anyone who has ever wondered why their brain appears to be sabotaging their life—and what on earth it is really up to. A Library Journal Science Bestseller and a Finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award in Science & Technology.
Download or read book Brain Thief written by Alexander Jablokov and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cyberpunk with a new twist—or several. It’s really murder!
Download or read book Saving Your Brain written by Jeffrey Ivan Victoroff and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2002 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking new book, a Harvard-trained neurologist shows how you can attain lifelong mental fitness. Utilizing the latest breakthroughs in research, Dr. Jeff Victoroff has developed a definitive, life-changing plan that provides you with the powerful, scientifically based methods you need to protect your brain from aging and memory loss. Starting today, you too can save your brain. If you are over forty years old, you already know the bad news: names may be harder to remember; a word may sometimes elude you as you speak; you may sometimes misplace your glasses, your car keys (or even your car!). But medical research is lifting the veil of mystery off the process of brain aging and offering up strong evidence that you do not necessarily have to accept deteriorating brain function as you get older. From the benefits of exercise to the effects of stress relief, from what you eat and drink to the kind of work you do, from the natural substances that are most likely to help to the new medications your doctor can prescribe, this book outlines literally hundreds of preventive measures you can take to keep your mind sharper, stronger, and healthier your whole life. Among the many topics covered in this book are: * Amazing new studies revealing who is most likely to get Alzheimer's disease--and how we can all reduce our risk * Powerful evidence showing how the Brain-Saving Diet can boost your defenses against memory loss * How stress, depression, anger, and low self-esteem can literally threaten the structure of our brains, and what we should all be doing about it * The surprising discovery that inflammation is slowly cooking our brain cells, and how we can stop it * The two ways you can literally add new brain cells! A book that will change the way you live, eat, and work, Saving Your Brain is a wake-up call to those people who have long since learned the wonders of taking care of their body--and now have the very real chance to provide the same lifesaving care for their brain.
