Christian ministry is not a sprint; it's a marathon, a long-term race, requiring not just initial enthusiasm and ability, but staying power. Unfortunately, a growing number of Christian ministers don't seem to possess that staying power. 44% of all pastors who have been involved in ministry for more than 15 years suffer from 'burn out', mental break down or serious illness. And that doesn't include those who fail to continue in active ministry for other reasons, such as immorality or loss of faith. Going the distance is about making sure you're not one of those statistics. Drawing on decades of biblical reflection and experience, Peter Brain explains how to keep fit mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually for the long-haul.
Neuroscience made simple: practical methods to rewire your brain and take control of your thoughts, actions, and inner voice. Despite our best efforts, most of the time, we act without thinking. We make poor decisions. But this isn't our fault! It's just how our brains are programmed. Now, you don't have to be a scientist to understand how to use your brain's instincts to your advantage instead of your downfall. Understand your brain; change it; shape it; master it. Build a Better Brain has one goal: to help you improve your life by understanding how your brain works, and taking advantage of it. Put simply, your brain still thinks it is 10,000 BC, and this has the potential to sabotage you on a daily basis. This book is a deep look into the roots of conscious and unconscious behavior. It's your introduction to neuroscience, but written for non-scientists and packed with advice. At the end of the day, this book is a guide for how to rewire your brain for optimal performance and happiness. Learn to create real neural growth on a daily basis. Increase your mental speed, think quicker, and make better decisions. Peter Hollins has studied psychology and peak human performance for over a dozen years and is a bestselling author. He has worked with dozens of individuals to unlock their potential and path towards success. His writing draws on his academic, coaching, and research experience. Oddly enough, neuroscience was his favorite class in school, and he has found how to apply that same information to real life situations. Control your impulses, anxious unconscious, and fears. Click the BUY NOW button to harness your mental potential. -The physiological origins of your behavior and how to shape them. -How habits - good and bad alike - are completely within your control. -Neuroplasticity in all its forms, and how to harness it for discipline and motivation. -Guiding principles for neural growth and networking. Improve everything you felt was simply impossible to change. Stop acting against your own interests and create intentional action. Start living the life you want, and don't be a slave to your brain. This is what allows you to overcome fear and anxiety, and allows you to cultivate confidence and boldness.
Each year, 100,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with a brain tumor. With his new book, Dr. Peter Black fills a gap in the lay readership, providing an accessible medical resource for adult patients and their families. Dr. Black, who has operated on more than 3,000 patients with brain tumors, is uniquely qualified to discuss both clinical treatment of and research into brain tumors. This invaluable resource tells patients everything they need to know to understand and address their diagnosis, in a four-part structure: • "What is a Brain Tumor?" provides straightforward information about how brain tumors are diagnosed, the different types of tumors and how they develop, and where to go for treatment. • "Coping with Shock" addresses the emotional impact of the diagnosis on the patient and their family, offering specific advice on support groups and how to managing work and finances during your treatment. • "Treatment options" outlines the complex array of available treatments in a sequential, logical, and thorough manner, enabling readers to make informed decisions. • "Recovery" describes how to deal with the aftermath, addressing issues ranging from physical scars to speech and occupational therapy. Dr. Black believes that more than half of brain tumor cases can be resolved with relatively minor side effects or none at all. Equipped with this informative book, patients and their family and friends can learn how to fight brain tumors effectively, putting them on the path to wellness.
In this optimistic and inspiring book, Peter Whybrow, the prize-winning author of American Mania, returns to offer a prescription for genuine human progress. The Well-Tuned Brain is a call to action. Swept along by the cascading advances of today’s technology, most of us take for granted that progress brings improvement. Despite spectacular material advance, however, the evidence grows that we are failing to create a sustainable future for humanity. We are out of tune with the planet that nurtures us. Technology itself is not the problem, as Whybrow explains, but rather our behavior. Throughout its evolution the ancient brain that guides us each day has been focused on short-term survival. But fortunately we are intensely social creatures. Without the caring behaviors that flow from intimate attachments to others, we would be relying on a brain that is only marginally adapted to the complexity of the problems we must now face together. Today we must grapple with survival, not in its immediacy but over the long term. The first step in finding our way forward is to reexamine who we are as creatures of this planet. To this end, Whybrow takes us on a fascinating tour of self-discovery, drawing extensively upon his decades of experience as a psychiatrist and his broad knowledge of neuroscience and human behavior. Illustrated throughout with engaging personal stories, the book’s trove of cutting-edge science is enriched by philosophical, historical, and cultural perspectives. What emerges is a summons to rediscover the essential virtues of earlier nurturing, of mentored education, and an engagement with the natural world through curiosity and imagination. Neuroscience can open the search for a better future. But technology alone will not save us. To achieve success we will need the strength and wisdom of our better nature as humane social beings.
A refreshingly practical and honest guide that rewrites the script on ADHD Peter Shankman is a busy guy -- a media entrepreneur who runs several businesses, gives keynote speeches around the world, hosts a popular podcast, runs marathons and Iron Mans, is a licensed skydiver, dabbles in angel investing, and is loving father to his young daughter. Simply put, he always seems to have more than 24 hours in a day. How does he do it? Peter attributes his unusually high energy level and extreme productivity to his ADHD. In Faster Than Normal, Shankman shares his hard-won insights and daily hacks for making ADHD a secret weapon for living a full and deeply satisfying life. Both inspiring and practical, the book presents life rules, best practices, and simple but powerful ways to: Harness your creative energy to generate and execute your ideas Direct your hyperfocus to get things done Identify your pitfalls--and avoid them Streamline your daily routine to eliminate distractions Use apps and other tech innovations to free up your time and energy Filled with ingenious hacks and supportive self-care advice, this is the positive, practical book the ADHD community has long needed - and is also an invaluable handbook for anyone who's sick of feeling overwhelmed and wants to drive their faster-than-normal brain at maximum speed...without crashing.
Part I discusses the brain's development and structure; Part II examines its function and potential, speaking to memory, imagery, mnemonics, the holographic theory of mind, reading and note-taking. Color mind maps, key words and organic structure introduce the reader to these concepts. -- (cover IV).
Each year, 100,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with a brain tumor. With his new book, Dr. Peter Black fills a gap in the lay readership, providing an accessible medical resource for adult patients and their families. Dr. Black, who has operated on more than 3,000 patients with brain tumors, is uniquely qualified to discuss both clinical treatment of and research into brain tumors. This invaluable resource tells patients everything they need to know to understand and address their diagnosis, in a four-part structure: • "What is a Brain Tumor?" provides straightforward information about how brain tumors are diagnosed, the different types of tumors and how they develop, and where to go for treatment. • "Coping with Shock" addresses the emotional impact of the diagnosis on the patient and their family, offering specific advice on support groups and how to managing work and finances during your treatment. • "Treatment options" outlines the complex array of available treatments in a sequential, logical, and thorough manner, enabling readers to make informed decisions. • "Recovery" describes how to deal with the aftermath, addressing issues ranging from physical scars to speech and occupational therapy. Dr. Black believes that more than half of brain tumor cases can be resolved with relatively minor side effects or none at all. Equipped with this informative book, patients and their family and friends can learn how to fight brain tumors effectively, putting them on the path to wellness.
The Knowable God comprises twenty-three self-contained chapters on the key issues raised and the emphases made in John's Gospel. It is not a critical commentary nor a set of devotional meditations; it is rather an exposition of key episodes, characters and themes, always trying to interpret the text for our own time. It centres on the fact that John's controversial distinctiveness is usually missed in Christian worship, teaching and belief. Within the New Testament there are several understandings of Christian faith, of salvation, of the significance of the cross. John gives us his views on all these, plus the headline message that it is the incarnation itself which is our salvation. To understand Christianity we need more than this Gospel - but cannot do without it.
The Centered Mind offers a new view of the nature and causal determinants of both reflective thinking and, more generally, the stream of consciousness. Peter Carruthers argues that conscious thought is always sensory-based, relying on the resources of the working-memory system. This system has been much studied by cognitive scientists. It enables sensory images to be sustained and manipulated through attentional signals directed at midlevel sensory areas of the brain. When abstract conceptual representations are bound into these images, we consciously experience ourselves as making judgments or arriving at decisions. Thus one might hear oneself as judging, in inner speech, that it is time to go home, for example. However, our amodal (non-sensory) propositional attitudes are never actually among the contents of this stream of conscious reflection. Our beliefs, goals, and decisions are only ever active in the background of consciousness, working behind the scenes to select the sensory-based imagery that occurs in working memory. They are never themselves conscious. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on working memory and related topics, Carruthers builds an argument that challenges the central assumptions of many philosophers. In addition to arguing that non-sensory propositional attitudes are never conscious, he also shows that they are never under direct intentional control. Written with his usual clarity and directness, The Centered Mind will be essential reading for all philosophers and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of human thought processes.
The development of a brain from its simple beginnings in the embryo to the extraordinarily complex fully-functional adult structure is a truly remarkable process. Understanding how it occurs remains a formidable challenge despite enormous advances over the last century and current intense world-wide scientific research. A greater knowledge of how nervous systems construct themselves will bring huge benefits for human health and future technologies. Unravelling the mechanisms that lead to the development of healthy brains should help scientists tackle currently incurable diseases of the nervous system such as autism, epilepsy and schizophrenia (to name but a few), discover more about the processes that cause the uncontrolled growth associated with cancer and develop possible treatments. Building Brains provides a highly visual and readily accessible introduction to the main events that occur during neural development and the mechanisms by which they occur. Aimed at undergraduate students and postgraduates new to the field, who may not have a background in neuroscience and/or molecular genetics, it explains how cells in the early embryo first become neural, how their proliferation is controlled, what regulates the types of neural cells they become, how neurons connect to each other, how these connections are later refined under the influence of neural activity including that arising from experience, and why some neurons normally die. Key Features: A concise illustrated guide focusing on the core elements of current understanding of neural development, emphasising common principles underlying developmental mechanisms and supplemented by suggestions for further reading. Text boxes throughout provide further detail on selected major advances, issues of particular uncertainty or controversy and examples of human diseases that result from abnormal development. A balanced mammalian/non-mammalian perspective, drawing on examples from model organisms including the fruit fly, nematode worm, frog, zebrafish, chick, mouse, ferret, cat, monkey and human, and emphasising mechanisms that are conserved across species. Introduces the methods for studying neural development including genetics, transgenic technologies, advanced microscopy and computational modeling, allowing the reader to understand the main evidence underlying research advances. Student-friendly, full colour artwork reinforces important concepts; an extensive glossary and definitions in page margins help readers from different backgrounds; chapter summaries stress important points and aid revision. Associated Website includes a complete set of figures from the textbook.
The behaviorist credo that animals are devices for translating sensory input into appropriate responses dies hard. The thesis of this pathbreaking book is that the brain is innately constructed to initiate behaviors likely to promote the survival of the species, and to sensitize sensory systems to stimuli required for those behaviors. Animals attend innately to vital stimuli (reinforcers) and the more advanced animals learn to attend to related stimuli as well. Thus, the centrifugal attentional components of sensory systems are as important for learned behavior as the more conventional paths. It is hypothesized that the basal ganglia are an important source of response plans and attentional signals. This reversal of traditional learning theory, along with the rapid expansion of knowledge about the brain, especially that acquired by improved techniques for recording neural activity in behaving animals and people, makes it possible to re-examine some long standing psychological problems. One such problem is how the intention to perform an act selects sensory input from relevant objects and ensures that it alone is delivered to the motor system to control the intended response. This is an aspect of what is sometimes known as the binding problem: how the different features of an observed object are integrated into a unified percept. Another problem that has never been satisfactorily addressed is how the brain stores information concerning temporal order, a requirement for the production of most learned responses, including pronouncing and writing words. A fundamental process, the association between brain activities representing external events, is surprisingly poorly understood at the neural level. Most concepts have multiple associations but the concept is not unduly corrupted by them, and usually only a single appropriate association is aroused at a time. Furthermore, any arbitrary pair of concepts can be instantly associated, apparently requiring an impossibly high degree of neural interconnection. The author suggests a substitute for the reverberating closed neuronal loop as an explanation for the engram (active memory trace or working memory), which may go some way to resolving these difficulties. Shedding new light on enduring questions, The Autonomous Brain will be welcomed by a broad audience of behavioral and brain scientists.
Neural plasticity--the brain's ability to change in response to normal developmental processes, experience, and injury--is a critically important phenomenon for both neuroscience and psychology. Increasing evidence about the extent of plasticity--long past the supposedly critical first three years--has recently emerged. Neural Plasticity offers the first succinct and lucid integration of this research and its implications. Pointing out the negative and the positive consequences of plasticity, Peter Huttenlocher describes plasticity in children and adults (in normal aging and in response to trauma), in sensory systems, the motor cortex, higher cortical functions, and language development, proceeding system by system, and paying particular attention to the cerebral cortex. One of the book's strengths is its range of references, not only to studies on human subjects but to the experimental study of animal models as well. This book will be a unique contribution to research and to the literature on clinical neuroscience.
Brain repair, smart pills, mind-reading machines--modern neuroscience promises to soon deliver a remarkable array of wonders as well as profound insight into the nature of the brain. But these exciting new breakthroughs, warns Steven Rose, will also raise troubling questions about what it means to be human.In The Future of the Brain, Rose explores just how far neuroscience may help us understand the human brain--including consciousness--and to what extent cutting edge technologies should have the power to mend or manipulate the mind. Rose first offers a panoramic look at what we now know about the brain, from its three-billion-year evolution, to its astonishingly rapid development in the embryo, to the miraculous process of infant development (how a brain becomes a human). More important, he shows what all this science can--and cannot--tell us about the human condition. He examines questions that still baffle scientists: if our genes are 99% identical to those of chimpanzees, if our brains are composed of identical molecules, arranged in pretty similar cellular patterns, how come we are so different? And he explores the potential threats and promises of new technologies and their ethical, legal, and social implications, wondering how far we should go in eliminating unwanted behavior or enhancing desired characteristics, focusing on the new "brain steroids" and on the use of Ritalin to control young children.The Future of the Brain is a remarkable look at what the brain sciences are telling us about who we are and where we came from--and where we may be headed in the years ahead.
Over the last two decades, molecular genetics and brain imaging have guided efforts to find the causes of schizophrenia. It is becoming increasingly clear that many genes are involved in schizophrenia and that they interact with other factors in very complex ways, which have not yet been elucidated. Neuroimaging techniques have allowed scientists and physicians to examine brain structure, function, and chemistry in living patients with schizophrenia but results so far have been disappointing. No two patients seem to share exactly the same combination of clinical symptoms or physical findings. Yet all have the syndrome recognized as schizophrenia. The author of this accessible, well-written book argues that it is time to set aside the search for a single cause of schizophrenia and focus on the disease's final common pathway. He highlights clues from a wide range of research, including neurotransmitter, psychophysiological, and brain imaging studies. He then describes possibilities for the final common pathway at an understandable level in the context of what is already known about schizophrenia. While there are no preferred models of schizophrenia, a pattern is emerging which implicates those structures in the brain known to be important in integrating perception, cognition, and affect. A better understanding of these processes will be critical for developing more effective treatments. This book will help advance that effort. It will be of great value to psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, neuroimagers, and basic scientists working in the field of schizophrenia research, and to their students and trainees. It will also be of interest to clinicians and scientists concerned with other neuropsychiatric disorders, and to the families of those diagnosed with schizophrenia.
This book recounts some experiences of young Australians with catastrophic brain injuries, their families and the medical system which they encountered. Whilst most of the events described occurred two to three decades ago they raise questions relevant to contemporary medical practice.
The hippocampus mediates several higher brain functions, such as learning, memory, and spatial coding. The input region of the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, plays a critical role in these processes. Several lines of evidence suggest that the dentate gyrus acts as a preprocessor of incoming information, preparing it for subsequent processing in CA3. For example, the dentate gyrus converts input from the entorhinal cortex, where cells have multiple spatial fields, into the spatially more specific place cell activity characteristic of the CA3 region. Furthermore, the dentate gyrus is involved in pattern separation, transforming relatively similar input patterns into substantially different output patterns. Finally, the dentate gyrus produces a very sparse coding scheme in which only a very small fraction of neurons are active at any one time. How are these unique functions implemented at the level of cells and synapses? Dentate gyrus granule cells receive excitatory neuron input from the entorhinal cortex and send excitatory output to the hippocampal CA3 region via the mossy fibers. Furthermore, several types of GABAergic interneurons are present in this region, providing inhibitory control over granule cell activity via feedback and feedforward inhibition. Additionally, hilar mossy cells mediate an excitatory loop, receiving powerful input from a small number of granule cells and providing highly distributed excitatory output to a large number of granule cells. Finally, the dentate gyrus is one of the few brain regions exhibiting adult neurogenesis. Thus, new neurons are generated and functionally integrated throughout life. How these specific cellular and synaptic properties contribute to higher brain functions remains unclear. One way to understand these properties of the dentate gyrus is to try to integrate experimental data into models, following the famous Hopfield quote: “Build it, and you understand it.” However, when trying this, one faces two major challenges. First, hard quantitative data about cellular properties, structural connectivity, and functional properties of synapses are lacking. Second, the number of individual neurons and synapses to be represented in the model is huge. For example, the dentate gyrus contains ~1 million granule cells in rodents, and ~10 million in humans. Thus, full scale models will be complex and computationally demanding. In this Frontiers Research Topic, we collect important information about cells, synapses, and microcircuit elements of the dentate gyrus. We have put together a combination of original research articles, review articles, and a methods article. We hope that the collected information will be useful for both experimentalists and modelers. We also hope that the papers will be interesting beyond the small world of “dentology,” i.e., for scientists working on other brain areas. Ideally, the dentate gyrus may serve as a blueprint, helping neuroscientists to define strategies to analyze network organization of other brain regions.
A neuroscientific perspective on the mind–body problem that focuses on how the brain actually accomplishes mental causation. The issues of mental causation, consciousness, and free will have vexed philosophers since Plato. In this book, Peter Tse examines these unresolved issues from a neuroscientific perspective. In contrast with philosophers who use logic rather than data to argue whether mental causation or consciousness can exist given unproven first assumptions, Tse proposes that we instead listen to what neurons have to say. Tse draws on exciting recent neuroscientific data concerning how informational causation is realized in physical causation at the level of NMDA receptors, synapses, dendrites, neurons, and neuronal circuits. He argues that a particular kind of strong free will and “downward” mental causation are realized in rapid synaptic plasticity. Such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of information realized in the present, but it can change the physical basis of information that may be realized in the immediate future. This gets around the standard argument against free will centered on the impossibility of self-causation. Tse explores the ways that mental causation and qualia might be realized in this kind of neuronal and associated information-processing architecture, and considers the psychological and philosophical implications of having such an architecture realized in our brains.
In this book, Peter Robin Hiesinger explores historical and contemporary attempts to understand the information needed to make biological and artificial neural networks. Developmental neurobiologists and computer scientists with an interest in artificial intelligence - driven by the promise and resources of biomedical research on the one hand, and by the promise and advances of computer technology on the other - are trying to understand the fundamental principles that guide the generation of an intelligent system. Yet, though researchers in these disciplines share a common interest, their perspectives and approaches are often quite different. The book makes the case that "the information problem" underlies both fields, driving the questions that are driving forward the frontiers, and aims to encourage cross-disciplinary communication and understanding, to help both fields make progress. The questions that challenge researchers in these fields include the following. How does genetic information unfold during the years-long process of human brain development, and can this be a short-cut to create human-level artificial intelligence? Is the biological brain just messy hardware that can be improved upon by running learning algorithms in computers? Can artificial intelligence bypass evolutionary programming of "grown" networks? These questions are tightly linked, and answering them requires an understanding of how information unfolds algorithmically to generate functional neural networks. Via a series of closely linked "discussions" (fictional dialogues between researchers in different disciplines) and pedagogical "seminars," the author explores the different challenges facing researchers working on neural networks, their different perspectives and approaches, as well as the common ground and understanding to be found amongst those sharing an interest in the development of biological brains and artificial intelligent systems"--
Hypnosis has recently experienced a surge of popularity in the scientific community and the general public and is currently being used to deal with a wide range of disorders. IN this elegantly written book, Dr. Peter Brown draws on the latest developments in cognitive psychology, anthropology, ethnology, and neuroscience to offer a new explanation for how hypnosis works and how it can be applied. Brown argues that the ability to hypnotized and be hypnotized is closely related to brain functions that are uniquely human--especially to our ability to communicate with others. He begins by looking at the way communication has evolved, especially our use of facial expression and the tonal aspects of speech to synchronize interactions. These features were particularly important for the transmission of culture in oral societies before the advent of writing. He next considers the changes the brain undergoes during hypnosis, proposing that hypnotherapy can be understood as the interaction between two fundamental brain functions: the rhythmic alteration in level of consciousness that the brain undergoes throughout the course of the day, and the capacity to use metaphor, imagery, and analogy to understand ourselves and the world. Brown discusses some of the clinical uses of hypnotherapy, in particular the exploration of multiple personality disorder (which can be characterized as spontaneous self-hypnosis as a means of coping with trauma) and the role of hypnosis in treating medical illness. In his final chapter he deals with how language may be used in hypnotherapy, with examples from the work of eth late Milton Erickson, one of the most influential clinicians and teacher sin contemporary hypnosis.
Failed an exam, bungled an interview, screwed up a relationship, broken your diet, or stuffed up at work? Yur brain is the key to getting back on track. Change your life for the better. Learn how to ‘rubberise’ your brain, making it more flexible and resilient. Deal with challenges in an optimal way, and ‘bounce’ back from adversity. Your brain controls your conscious thoughts and behaviours, like deciding whether to study or party, or whether to get two scoops of gelato or six. And when you find yourself doing things that you wish you hadn’t done (like all that gelato), it’s likely your brain has indulged in what psychological scientists call suboptimal thinking. Essentially, your brain doesn’t always deliver the kind of thinking that leads to desired positive outcomes, such as maintaining supportive friendships, and doing well in your work, studies and social life. But you and your brain can do better. In this book, five leading psychological educators show you simple tools derived from solid science covering everything from positive psychology to goal setting, from mindfulness to CBT, and from emotional regulation to moral reasoning, to optimise your thinking. Using a model they have developed over years of study and application you can discover how resilience and psychological flexibility combine to allow you to choose ways of thinking in response to different situations that will produce the best outcome for you for that situation. Read this book and learn how to optimally tackle issues of motivation, stress, time-management, and relationship maintenance. Your mind will be clearer and your life better.
The Internet is more than just a series of interconnected computer networks: it's the first real replication of the human brain outside the human body. To leverage its power, you first need to understand how the Internet has evolved to take on similarities to the brain. This engaging and provocative book provides the answer.
Cognitive Science is a major new guide to the central theories and problems in the study of the mind and brain. The authors clearly explain how and why cognitive science aims to understand the brain as a computational system that manipulates representations. They identify the roots of cognitive science in Descartes - who argued that all knowledge of the external world is filtered through some sort of representation - and examine the present-day role of Artificial Intelligence, computing, psychology, linguistics and neuroscience. Throughout, the key building blocks of cognitive science are clearly illustrated: perception, memory, attention, emotion, language, control of movement, learning, understanding and other important mental phenomena. Cognitive Science: presents a clear, collaborative introduction to the subject is the first textbook to bring together all the different strands of this new science in a unified approach includes illustrations and exercises to aid the student
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