The author examines ideas of the nature and localization of the functions of the brain in the light of the philosophical constraints at work in the sciences of mind and brain in the 19th century. Particular attention is paid to phrenology, sensory-motor physiology and associationist psychology.
Preposterous as it sounds, we are not who we seem to be. Not even close. At the heart of this misperception is our deep-seated conviction of free choice. Based on emerging neurobehavioral science findings, The Deceptive Brain makes the case for human experience as a narrative illusion—an executive summary of sorts—that emerges from an incredibly complex brain. The Deceptive Brain drills down on what this finding means for the way we blame and punish, and presents a bold alternative approach to criminal justice based on blameless responsibility.
This book is the outcome of a decade of research on the neu roanatomical mechanisms of learning in the young laboratory rat. It is essentially a discourse on the functional organization of the brain in relation to problem-solving ability and intelli gence. During the period between 1980 and 1989, well over 1000 weanling albino rats were subjected to localized brain damage (or sham operations in the case of the controls) under deep anesthesia and aseptic surgical conditions, were allowed tore cover, and subsequently were tested on a wide variety of prob lems designed to measure general learning ability. Since vir tually every part of the brain rostral to the medulla has been explored with lesions, it has become possible not only to map a number of "putative" brain systems underlying the acquisition of distinctive problem-solving tasks, but to isolate several neu roanatomical mechanisms that appear to be selectively in volved in the acquisition of particular kinds of goal-directed learned activities. Of particular interest was the discovery of a "nonspecific mechanism" (previously referred to in our re search reports as the "general learning system") inhabiting the interior parts of the brain. One objective of this volume was to make these maps available in a single source. Another was to provide a descrip tion of learning syndromes arising from local lesions to differ ent parts of the brain.
Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger the nervous system? By now, he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going--next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.
The bestselling authors of How God Changes Your Brain reveal the neurological underpinnings of enlightenment, offering unique strategies to help readers experience its many benefits. In this original and groundbreaking book, Andrew Newberg, M.D., and Mark Robert Waldman turn their attention to the pinnacle of the human experience: enlightenment. Through his brain- scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals, and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Newberg has discovered the specific neurological mechanisms associated with the enlightenment experience--and how we might activate those circuits in our own brains. In his survey of more than one thousand people who have experienced enlightenment, Newberg has also discovered that in the aftermath they have had profound, positive life changes. Enlightenment offers us the possibility to become permanently less stress-prone, to break bad habits, to improve our collaboration and creativity skills, and to lead happier, more satisfying lives. Relaying the story of his own transformational experience as well as including the stories of others who try to describe an event that is truly indescribable, Newberg brings us a new paradigm for deep and lasting change.
In this groundbreaking book, Dr Hatherill, a leading toxicologist, brings to light the latest discoveries of how the brain works, and explains exactly what we can do to preserve the brain's vital functions. This new science looks closely at the blood-brain barrier—literally the gateway to the brain, which determines what enters our brain and what doesn't. Dr Hatherill's research into toxic substances and nutritional elements shows that what gets into our brain affects emotions, intelligence, disease, and overall well-being far more than scientists ever believed possible. Stress, cancer-fighting drugs, common medications, even the elements in processed foods, all allow harmful toxins to cross over and enter our brain and cause disease. The book includes a comprehensive 'Six-Step Brain Purification Program', the only brain detox and nutrition plan that jump-starts optimum brain health. You will find the Top 10 substances that threaten the health of your brain, and learn what foods you can use to fight off such debilitating diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
It's never been this urgent to build employee relationships that spark higher brain thinking and the skills to connect with people to encourage their highest performance. In other words, it's vital to engage team members' upper brains, which control critical reasoning, judgment, and creativity. When that positive connection is lacking, leaders risk provoking team members' lower brains--which govern fear and survival behaviors--and creating a toxic workplace.Research shows that a leader's behavior is the most important predictor of a team's success. Leading with Your Upper Brain helps you understand why. It provides an innovative framework to shift your behavior in ways that help employees tap into their upper-brain resources that drive higher levels of performance.The authors use cutting-edge neuroscience research to illustrate how a positive connection with their leader builds trust and affects team members' brain function that leads to overall team success. They share a modern, science-based approach to performance management and leadership development that fits any organization. Each chapter offers key takeaways, tips, and questions to help you put the principles into practice
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.
The instant New York Times bestseller “Excellent…Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing, and the depth of humanity it conveys.” – Wall Street Journal One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works—the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody’s “fault”; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet, as he acknowledges, it’s very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness, and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.
This is a thorough revision of an introductory text on psychophysiological recording, with new information on equipment used to do brain scanning and other equipment not available in 1980.
Ideal for beginning medical and graduate students in need of a comprehensive neuroscience resource, A Survey of Medical Neuroscience focuses on the function of the central nervous system and its relationship to virtually all other systems in the human body. The text takes the same broad, interdisciplinary approach to the subject matter as is currently taken in first-year medical and graduate neuroscience courses. The text is a comprehensive integration of the other disciplines associated with neuroscience - anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavioral science - that can comfortably be read in a short amount of time. Concepts are illuminated by clear, two-color illustrations. Features appendices containing photographs of representative human brain sections.
The brain is an enormously dynamic organ. Even when we sleep connections are made, signals sent and messages delivered. One of the key ways that the brain operates is via chemical stimuli which permits different parts of the brain to communicate between themselves and with the rest of the body. Determining what these chemicals, proteins and molecules are is an important way to not only discover how the brain works, but provide novel targets that may be useful in the treatment of disease, for instance in dealing with memory loss in dementia. This new book brings together international research in a broad range of topics, including molecular and cellular neurochemistry, neuropharmacology and genetic aspects of CNS function, neuroimmunology, metabolism, as well as the neurochemistry of neurological and psychiatric disorders of the CNS.
This book is part of an ongoing history of efforts to understand the nature of waking and sleeping states from a biological point of view. We believe the recent technological revolutions in anatomy and physiology make the present moment especially propitious for this effort. In planning this book we had the choices of producing an edited volume with invited chapter authors or of writing the book ourselves. Edited volumes offer the opportunity for expression of expertise in each chapter but, we felt, would not allow the development of our ideas on the potential and actual unity of the field and would not allow the expression of coherence that can be obtained only with one or two voices, but which may be quite difficult with a chorus assembled and performing together for the first time. (Unlike musical works, there is very little precedent for rehearsals and repeated performances for authors of edited volumes or even for the existence of conductors able to induce a single rhythm and vision of the composition. ) We thus decided on a monograph. The primary goal was to communicate the current realities and the future possibilities of unifying basic studies on anatomy and cellular physiology with investigations of the behavioral and physi ological events of waking and sleep. In keeping with this goal we cross-reference the basic cellular physiology in the latter chapters, and, in the last chapter, we take up possible links to relevant clinical phenomenology.
In this “accessible and provocative” book, (Kirkus Reviews), the author of The Psychology of Consciousness cuts through the confusion around the right brain-left brain theory. Black-and-white photographs and illustrations.
The central theme of this book is the role of energetical factors in the regulation of human information processing activity. This is a restatement of one of the classic problems of psychology - that of acc ounting for motivational or intensive aspects of behaviour, as opposed to structural or directional aspects. The term "energetics" was first used in the 1930's by Freeman, Duffy and others, following Cannon's energy mobilization view of emotion and motivation. The original concept had a limited life, probably because of its unnecessary focus on relativ ely peripheral processes, but it provided the foundations for the con cepts of "arousal" and "activation" which became the popular motivational constructs of the 1950's and 1960's. Now, these too are found wanting. The original assumptions of a unitary, non-specific process based on activation of the brain stem reticular formation have been shown to be misleading. Current work in neurobiology has demonstrated evidence of discrete neurotransmitter systems having quite specific information processing functions, and central roles in the regulation of behaviour. Even the venerable curvilinear relationship between motivation and per formance (the Yerkes-Dodson law) has been shown to be, at best, an unhelpful oversimplification. On a different front psychophysiologists have found complex patterns in the response of different bodily systems to external stressors and to task demands.
How human language evolved from the need for social communication The origins of human language remain hotly debated. Despite growing appreciation of cognitive and neural continuity between humans and other animals, an evolutionary account of human language—in its modern form—remains as elusive as ever. The Social Origins of Language provides a novel perspective on this question and charts a new path toward its resolution. In the lead essay, Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney draw on their decades-long pioneering research on monkeys and baboons in the wild to show how primates use vocalizations to modulate social dynamics. They argue that key elements of human language emerged from the need to decipher and encode complex social interactions. In other words, social communication is the biological foundation upon which evolution built more complex language. Seyfarth and Cheney’s argument serves as a jumping-off point for responses by John McWhorter, Ljiljana Progovac, Jennifer E. Arnold, Benjamin Wilson, Christopher I. Petkov and Peter Godfrey-Smith, each of whom draw on their respective expertise in linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Michael Platt provides an introduction, Seyfarth and Cheney a concluding essay. Ultimately, The Social Origins of Language offers thought-provoking viewpoints on how human language evolved.
Robert Brain traces the origins of artistic modernism to specific technologies of perception developed in late-nineteenth-century laboratories. Brain argues that the thriving fin-de-siècle field of “physiological aesthetics,” which sought physiological explanations for the capacity to appreciate beauty and art, changed the way poets, artists, and musicians worked and brought a dramatic transformation to the idea of art itself.
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