"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth's magnetic...

An analysis of what can be learned from psychopaths incorporates advances in brain scanning and neuroscience to illustrate the scale of mental health that impacts everyone, the role of functional psychopathic behaviors in success, and the misunderstandings that impact treatments.

"How do our brains store-and then conjure up-past experiences to make us who we are? A twinge of sadness, a rush of love, a knot of loss, a whiff of regret. Memories have the power to move us, often when we least expect it, a sign of the complex neural process that continues in the background of our everyday lives. This process shapes us: filtering the world around us, informing our behavior and feeding our imagination. Psychiatrist Veronica O'Keane...

"The remarkable, intertwined histories of neurology, psychiatry, neurosyphilis, and hysteria, and the derailing of a coordinated approach to mental illness. In 1882, Jean-Martin Charcot was the premiere physician in Paris, having just established a neurology clinic at the infamous Salpetriere Hospital, a place that was called a "grand asylum of human misery." Assessing the dismal conditions, he quickly set up to upgrade the facilities, and in doing...

"A neurologist regales readers with extraordinary stories of the brain under siege. Our brains are the most complex machines known to humankind, but they have an Achilles heel: The very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds. Here are true accounts of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake, from total loss of inhibitions to florid psychosis to compulsive lying. Cognitive neurologist Sara Manning Peskin demystifies...

"A groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that untangles insidious myths from complicated realities, Mother Brain explodes the concept of "maternal instinct" and tells a new story about what it means to become a parent. Chelsea Conaboy delves into the neuroscience to reveal unexpected upsides, generations of scientific neglect, and a powerful new narrative of parenthood"--

No reader curious about our "little grey cells" will want to pass up Harvard neuroscientist John E. Dowling's brief introduction to the brain. In this up-to-date revision of his 1998 book Creating Mind, Dowling conveys the essence and vitality of the field of neuroscience -- examining the progress we've made in understanding how brains work, and shedding light on discoveries having to do with aging, mental illness, and brain health. The first half...

"An exploration of the interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, and neuroscience"--

Gives readers of any scientific level an introduction to neuroscience and shows them how things like creativity, skill, and even perception of self can grow and change by utilizing the body's most important muscle.

The course concludes with an exploration of other potentially addictive behaviors. Professor Polk argues that some artificial stimuli - junk food, pornography, and video games to name three - are "supernormal," meaning that they actually activate the brain's reward circuit more strongly than natural stimuli do, leading to some of the same neurological effects as drug use.