Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh's starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven's Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science.In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and builds on the latest research...

"A profound intriguing and compelling guide to the intricacies of the human brain." —Oliver SacksIn this landmark work, V. S. Ramachandran investigates strange, unforgettable cases—from patients who believe they are dead to sufferers of phantom limb syndrome. With a storyteller’s eye for compelling case studies and a researcher’s flair for new approaches to age-old questions, Ramachandran tackles the most exciting and controversial topics in brain science, including language, creat...

A "fascinating" and groundbreaking work of science that demonstrates the possibilities for human control over the workings of the brain ( Cleveland Plain Dealer).Conventional science has long held that "the mind" is an illusion, a mere side effect of electrochemical activity in the physical brain. The Mind & The Brain argues exactly the opposite: that the mind has a life of its own. Dr. Schwartz, a leading researcher in brain dysfunctions, and ...

Most of us have no idea what’s really going on inside our heads. Yet brain scientists have uncovered details every business leader, parent, and teacher should know-like the need for physical activity to get your brain working its best.How do we learn? What exactly do sleep and stress do to our brains? Why is multi-tasking a myth? Why is it so easy to forget-and so important to repeat new knowledge? Is it true that men and women have different brains?In Brain Rules,...

In The Autistic Brain, New York Times bestselling author Temple Grandin "has reached a stunning level of sophistication about herself and the science of autism" (The New York Review of Books).Winner of a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction BookTemple Grandin may be the most famous person with autism, a condition that affects 1 in 88 children. Since her birth in 1947, our understanding of it has undergone a great transformation, leading to more hope than ever...

In recent years neuroscientists have uncovered the countless ways our brain trips us up in day-to-day life, from its propensity toward irrational thought to how our intuitions deceive us. The latest research on sleep, however, points in the opposite direction. Where old wives tales have long advised to "sleep on a problem," today scientists are discovering the truth behind these folk sayings,and how the busy brain radically improves our minds through sleep and dreams. In The Secret Wor...

This original and lucid account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being draws on the latest scientific research. Three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain.A General Theory of Love demonstrates that our nervous systems are not self-contained: from ...

In Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, eminent neuropsychiatrist and bestselling author Richard Restak, M.D., combines the latest research in neurology and psychology to show us how to get our brain up to speed for managing every aspect of our busy lives.Everything we think and everything we choose to do alters our brain and fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until the end of our lives. Few people think of the brain as being susceptible to...

A leading neuroscientist explores with authority, with imagination, and with unparalleled mastery how the brain constructs the mind and how the brain makes that mind conscious.Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he rejects the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, and presents compelling new scientific evidence that posits an evolution...

“Accessible, witty . . . an important new researcher, philosopher and popularizer of brain science . . . on par with cosmology’s Brian Greene and the late Carl Sagan” (The Plain Dealer).One of the Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year and a Publishers Weekly “Top Ten in Science” TitleEvery person is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, that uniqueness resides. Our genome may determin...

A trailblazing philosopher’s exploration of the latest brain science—and its ethical and practical implications.What happens when we accept that everything we feel and think stems not from an immaterial spirit but from electrical and chemical activity in our brains? In this thought-provoking narrative—drawn from professional expertise as well as personal life experiences—trailblazing neurophilosopher Patricia S. Churchland grounds the philosophy of mind in the essential ingredients...

The central concepts of the theory of interpersonal neurobiology.Many fields have explored the nature of mental life from psychology to psychiatry, literature to linguistics. Yet no common “framework” where each of these important perspectives can be honored and integrated with one another has been created in which a person seeking their collective wisdom can find answers to some basic questions, such as, What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? How do we know things, how are ...