- When I drink, am I killing my brain cells?
- Does cramming for an exam work?
- Why can't you tickle yourself?
- Can you improve your brain with video games?
- Why is looking at a photograph harder than playing chess?
Written with a light touch, but using hard science, Welcome to your Brain will answer all the questions you've ever had about how that amazing three pounds in your skull works - and how you can help it work better. Written by two top neuroscientists, they dispel all the myths (such as we only ever use 10% of our brains!), and show how understanding your brain can also be useful.
Full of practical tips for improving your noggin, as well plenty of stories to amuse your friends, Welcome to your Brain will be the most accessible, and the most fascinating, book on your grey matter that you could ever hope to read.
Author(s): Sandra Aamodt; Sam Wang
Edition: UK
Publisher: Rider
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: xx; 291
City: London
Tags: Brain--Popular works; Neurosciences; Neuropsychology--Popular works
COVER
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Your Brain?
INTRODUCTION Your Brain: A User’s Guide
PART 1 – YOUR BRAIN AND THE WORLD
CHAPTER 1: Can You Trust Your Brain?
Looking at a photograph is harder than playing chess
Are we in our right minds?
Myth: We use only 10 percent of our brains
CHAPTER 2: Gray Matter and the Silver Screen: Popular Metaphors of How the Brain Works
Depictions of brain disorders in the movies
Head injury and personality
Can memories be erased?
Schizophrenia in the movies—A Beautiful Mind
CHAPTER 3: Thinking Meat: Neurons and Synapses
Your brain uses less power than your refrigerator light
Loewi’s dream of the neurotransmitter
Is your brain like a computer?
CHAPTER 4: Fascinating Rhythms: Biological Clocks and Jet Lag
Practical tip: Overcoming jet lag
Practical tip: Frequent jet lag and brain damage
Speculation: Morning people and night people
CHAPTER 5: Bring Your Swimsuit: Weight Regulation
Calorie restriction and life extension
Practical tip: Tricking your brain into helping you lose weight
PART 2 – COMING TO YOUR SENSES
CHAPTER 6: Looking Out for Yourself: Vision
Animal research and “lazy eye”
The neuron that loved Michael Jordan
Myth: Blind people have better hearing
CHAPTER 7: How to Survive a Cocktail Party: Hearing
Practical tip: How to prevent hearing loss
Practical tip: Improving hearing with artificial ears
Practical tip: How to hear better on your cell phone in a loud room
CHAPTER 8: Accounting for Taste (and Smell)
A seizure of the nose, or sneezing at the sun
Why mice don’t like Diet Coke
CHAPTER 9: Touching All the Bases: Your Skin’s Senses
Why can’t you tickle yourself?
Practical tip: Does acupuncture work?
Practical tip: Referred pain
PART 3 – HOW YOUR BRAIN CHANGES THROUGHOUT LIFE
CHAPTER 10: Growing Great Brains: Early Childhood
Myth: Listening to Mozart makes babies smarter
Early life stress and adult vulnerability
CHAPTER 11: Growing Up: Sensitive Periods and Language
Is language innate?
Is music like a language?
CHAPTER 12: Rebels and Their Causes: Childhood and Adolescence
Practical tip: Improving your brain with video games
Brain growth and intelligence
CHAPTER 13: An Educational Tour: Learning
Practical tip: Should you cram for an exam?
Why are some things easier to learn than others?
Practical tip: Put it out of your mind
CHAPTER 14: Reaching the Top of the Mountain: Aging
Practical tip: How can you protect your brain as you get older?
I’m losing my memory. Do I have Alzheimer’s disease?
Are you born with all the neurons you’ll ever have?
CHAPTER 15: Is the Brain Still Evolving?
Understanding nature versus nurture
Machiavellian intelligence—a brain arms race?
PART 4 – YOUR EMOTIONAL BRAIN
CHAPTER 16: The Weather in Your Brain: Emotions
Emotions and memory
How does your brain know a joke is funny?
CHAPTER 17: Did I Pack Everything? Anxiety
Myth: The car-crash effect
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Practical tip: How to treat a phobia
CHAPTER 18: Happiness and How We Find It
Happiness around the world
How scientists measure happiness
Practical tip: How to increase your happiness
CHAPTER 19: What’s It Like in There? Personality
Domesticating the brain
CHAPTER 20: Sex, Love, and Pair-Bonding
Studying flirtation
Imaging orgasm
Myth: Men learn to be gay
PART 5 – YOUR RATIONAL BRAIN
CHAPTER 21: One Lump or Two: How You Make Decisions
Practical tip: Maximizers and satisficers
Practical tip: Can willpower be trained?
CHAPTER 22: Intelligence (and the Lack of It)
Practical tip: How expectations influence test performance
Great brains in small packages
Myth: Brain folding is a sign of intelligence
CHAPTER 23: Vacation Snapshots: Memory
Forgetting your keys but remembering how to drive
Myth: Recovered memory
Practical tip: Can’t get it out of my head
CHAPTER 24: Rationality Without Reason: Autism
Monkey see, monkey do: Mirror neurons
Myth: Vaccines cause autism
CHAPTER 25: A Brief Detour to Mars and Venus: Cognitive Gender Differences
Myth: Women are moodier than men
Males are more variable than females
Quiz: How to think like a man
PART 6 – YOUR BRAIN IN ALTERED STATES
CHAPTER 26: Do You Mind? Studying Consciousness
The Dalai Lama, enlightenment, and brain surgery
Can brain scanners read your mind?
My brain made me do it: Neuroscience and the law
CHAPTER 27: In Your Dreams: The Neuroscience of Sleep
Wake up, little Susie: Narcolepsy and modafinil
Why are yawns contagious?
CHAPTER 28: A Pilgrimage: Spirituality
Meditation and the brain
The neuroscience of visions
CHAPTER 29: Forgetting Birthdays: Stroke
Practical tip: Warning signs of stroke—and what to do
CHAPTER 30: A Long, Strange Trip: Drugs and Alcohol
Ecstasy and Prozac
Does marijuana cause lung cancer?
Hit me again: Addiction and the brain
Practical tip: Drinking and pregnancy
CHAPTER 31: How Deep Is Your Brain? Therapies that Stimulate the Brain’s Core
Interfaces between brains and machines
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT
