Book picks similar to
The Brain by Richard Restak


science
biology
popular-science-non-fiction
neurology

Microbiology: A Systems Approach


Marjorie Kelly Cowan - 2000
    It has become known for its engaging writing style, instructional art program and focus on active learning. We are so excited to offer a robust learning program with student-focused learning activities, allowing the student to manage their learning while you easily manage their assessment. Detailed reports show how your assignments measure various learning objectives from the book (or input your own!), levels of Bloom's Taxonomy or other categories, and how your students are doing. The Cowan Learning program will save you time and improve your student's success in this course.

The Man Who Couldn't Stop


David Adam - 2014
    In this captivating fusion of science, history and personal memoir, writer David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind, and how they drive millions of us towards obsessions and compulsions.David has suffered from OCD for twenty years, and The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is his unflinchingly honest attempt to understand the condition and his experiences. What might lead an Ethiopian schoolgirl to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece; or a pair of brothers to die beneath an avalanche of household junk that they had compulsively hoarded? At what point does a harmless idea, a snowflake in a clear summer sky, become a blinding blizzard of unwanted thoughts? Drawing on the latest research on the brain, as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, this is a book that will challenge the way you think about what is normal, and what is mental illness.Told with fierce clarity, humour and urgent lyricism, this extraordinary book is both the haunting story of a personal nightmare, and a fascinating doorway into the darkest corners of our minds.

Ultimate Questions: Thinking About Philosophy


Nils Ch. Rauhut - 2006
    Vivid and engaging examples further enhance this up-to-date examination of the main problems in contemporary philosophy. It is written for professors teaching a problems-oriented course.

The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World


Sean Carroll - 2012
    It had to be found. But projects as big as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider don’t happen without incredible risks – and occasional skullduggery. In the definitive account of this landmark event, Caltech physicist and acclaimed science writer Sean Carroll reveals the insights, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs discovery, and takes us on a riveting and irresistible ride to the very edge of physics today.

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics


Roger Penrose - 1989
    Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do? In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose--eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen Hawking, of the prestigious Wolf prize--puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness. He is among a growing number of physicists who think Einstein wasn't being stubborn when he said his little finger told him that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that laws even deeper than quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind. To support this contention, Penrose takes the reader on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, the structure of the brain, and scores of other subjects. The Emperor's New Mind will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in modern physics and its relation to philosophical issues, as well as to physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and those on either side of the AI debate.

The Immune System


Peter Parham - 2004
    This class-tested and successful textbook synthesizes the established facts of immunology into a comprehensible, coherent, and up-to-date account of how the immune system works, rather than presenting immunology as a chronology of experiments and discoveries. Emphasizing the human immune system the text has been designed to break down the barriers which often divide basic and clinical immunology. The reader-friendly text, section and chapter summaries, and full-color illustrations make the book accessible and easily understandable to students. The Immune System is adapted from Immunobiology by Janeway, Travers & Walport.

The Forgetting Machine: Memory, Perception, and the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron"


Rodrigo Quian Quiroga - 2017
    In The Forgetting Machine, neuroscientist Rodrigo Quiroga explains how the mechanics of memory illuminates these discussions, with implications for everything from understanding Alzheimer's disease to the technology of Artificial Intelligence. You'll also learn about the research behind what Quiroga coined -Jennifer Aniston Neurons---cells in the human brain that are responsible for representing specific concepts, such as recognizing a certain celebrity's face. The discovery of these neurons opens new windows into the workings of human memory. In this accessible, fascinating look at the science of remembering, you'll learn how we turn perceptions into memories, how language shapes our experiences, and the crucial role forgetting plays in human recollection. You'll see how electricity, chemistry, and abstraction combine to form something more than the human brain--the human mind. And you'll gain surprising insight into what our brains can tell us about who we are. The Forgetting Machine takes us on a journey through science and science fiction, philosophy and identity, using what we know about how we remember (and forget) to explore the very roots of what makes us human.

Rapid Review Pathology


Edward F. Goljan - 2004
    Goljan, MD, makes it easy for you to master all of the pathology material covered on the USMLE™ Step 1 Exam. It combines an outline-format review of key concepts with over 400 hundred USMLE-style practice questions - online - that give you all the practice you need to succeed! Book • Outline format: Concise, high-yield subject matter is presented in a study-friendly format.• High-yield margin notes: Key content that is most likely to appear on the exam is reinforced in the margin notes.• Visual elements: Full-color photographs are utilized to enhance your study and recognition of key pathology images. Abundant two-color schematics and summary tables enhance your study experience.• Two-color design: Colored text and headings make studying more efficient and pleasing.New! Online Study and Testing Tool• A minimum of 350 USMLE Step 1–type MCQs: Clinically oriented, multiple-choice questions that mimic the current USMLE format, including high-yield images and complete rationales for all answer options. • Online benefits: New review and testing tool delivered via the USMLE Consult platform, the most realistic USMLE review product on the market. Online feedback includes results analyzed to the subtopic level (discipline and organ system). • Test mode: Create a test from a random mix of questions or by subject or keyword using the timed test mode. USMLE Consult simulates the actual test-taking experience using NBME’s FRED interface, including style and level of difficulty of the questions and timing information. Detailed feedback and analysis shows your strengths and weaknesses and allows for more focused study. • Practice mode: Create a test from randomized question sets or by subject or keyword for a dynamic study session. The practice mode features unlimited attempts at each question, instant feedback, complete rationales for all answer options, and a detailed progress report. • Online access: Online access allows you to study from an internet-enabled computer wherever and whenever it is convenient. This access is activated through registration on www.studentconsult.com with the pin code printed inside the front cover.Student Consult• Full online access: You can access the complete text and illustrations of this book on www.studentconsult.com. • Save content to your PDA: Through our unique Pocket Consult platform, you can clip selected text and illustrations and save them to your PDA for study on the fly! • Free content: An interactive community center with a wealth of additional valuable resources is available.

Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum


Gavin Francis - 2015
    How many of us understand the way seizures affect the brain, how the heart is connected to wellbeing, or the why the foot carries the key to our humanity? In Adventures in Human Being, award-winning author Gavin Francis leads readers on a journey into the hidden pathways of the human body, offering a guide to its inner workings and a celebration of its marvels.Drawing on his experiences as a surgeon, ER specialist, and family physician, Francis blends stories from the clinic with episodes from medical history, philosophy, and literature to describe the body in sickness and in health, in living and in dying. At its heart, Adventures in Human Being is a meditation on what it means to be human. Poetic, eloquent, and profoundly perceptive, this book will transform the way you view your body.

Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience


Sally L. Satel - 2013
    But although brain scans and other neurotechnologies have provided groundbreaking insights into the workings of the human brain, the increasingly fashionable idea that they are the most important means of answering the enduring mysteries of psychology is misguided—and potentially dangerous.In Brainwashed, psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld reveal how many of the real-world applications of human neuroscience gloss over its limitations and intricacies, at times obscuring—rather than clarifying—the myriad factors that shape our behavior and identities. Brain scans, Satel and Lilienfeld show, are useful but often ambiguous representations of a highly complex system. Each region of the brain participates in a host of experiences and interacts with other regions, so seeing one area light up on an fMRI in response to a stimulus doesn't automatically indicate a particular sensation or capture the higher cognitive functions that come from those interactions. The narrow focus on the brain's physical processes also assumes that our subjective experiences can be explained away by biology alone. As Satel and Lilienfeld explain, this “neurocentric” view of the mind risks undermining our most deeply held ideas about selfhood, free will, and personal responsibility, putting us at risk of making harmful mistakes, whether in the courtroom, interrogation room, or addiction treatment clinic. A provocative account of our obsession with neuroscience, Brainwashed brilliantly illuminates what contemporary neuroscience and brain imaging can and cannot tell us about ourselves, providing a much-needed reminder about the many factors that make us who we are.

Sleepyhead: Narcolepsy, Neuroscience and the Search for a Good Night


Henry Nicholls - 2018
    For the healthy but overworked majority, this might sound like an enviable condition, but for Henry, the inability to stay awake is profoundly disabling, especially as it is accompanied by mysterious collapses called cataplexy, poor night-time sleep, hallucinations and sleep paralysis.A writer and biologist, Nicholls explores the science of disordered sleep, discovering that around half of us will experience some kind of sleep dysfunction in our lives. From a CBT course to tackle insomnia to a colony of narcoleptic Dobermans, his journey takes him through the half-lit world of sleep to genuine revelations about his own life and health.Told with humour and intelligence, Sleepyhead uses personal reflections, interviews with those with sleep disorders and the people who study them, anecdotes from medical history and insights from art and literature to change the way we understand our sleeping hours.

Addicted?: How Addiction Affects Every One of Us and What We Can Do About It


Matt Noffs - 2018
    Addictions to smartphones, sex, games, social media, gambling, money, but most of all to alcohol and drugs. The words 'addict' and 'addiction' are loaded with baggage. Not just in Australia, but the world over, addicts are considered to be sub-human, if not alien. This book aims to reclaim their dignity. It aims to rescue the word 'addiction' from its kidnappers and restore its humanity. It offers personal accounts from inspirational people who have found themselves in the grips of such addictions, and their amazing stories of survival. At the Ted Noffs Foundation, Matt Noffs and Kieran Palmer spend their lives working with young people who have serious and often debilitating drug addictions. This book shares the tools they use every day. It offers insights into why addiction takes place and why it's a natural part of being human. It journeys across the spectrum of addictive behaviors, from social media to drugs like heroin. It questions the assumptions and begins to debunk the myth that all addiction is identical and predictable. Addiction is something that could affect any of us. This is a book that everyone should read.

An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain


Diane Ackerman - 2004
     Long treasured by literary readers for her uncommon ability to bridge the gap between art and science, celebrated scholar-artist Diane Ackerman returns with the book she was born to write. Her dazzling new work, An Alchemy of Mind, offers an unprecedented exploration and celebration of the mental fantasia in which we spend our days—and does for the human mind what the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses did for the physical senses. Bringing a valuable female perspective to the topic, Diane Ackerman discusses the science of the brain as only she can: with gorgeous, immediate language and imagery that paint an unusually lucid and vibrant picture for the reader. And in addition to explaining memory, thought, emotion, dreams, and language acquisition, she reports on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and addresses controversial subjects like the effects of trauma and male versus female brains. In prose that is not simply accessible but also beautiful and electric, Ackerman distills the hard, objective truths of science in order to yield vivid, heavily anecdotal explanations about a range of existential questions regarding consciousness, human thought, memory, and the nature of identity.

The Naked Ape


Desmond Morris - 1967
    Here is the Naked Ape at his most primal in love, at work, at war. Meet man as he really is: relative to the apes, stripped of his veneer as we see him courting, making love, sleeping, socializing, grooming, playing. The Naked Ape takes its place alongside Darwin’s Origin of the Species, presenting man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape, remarkable in his resilience, energy and imagination, yet an animal nonetheless, in danger of forgetting his origins. With its penetrating insights on man's beginnings, sex life, habits and our astonishing bonds to the animal kingdom, The Naked Ape is a landmark, at once provocative, compelling and timeless.

Return to the Brain of Eden: Restoring the Connection between Neurochemistry and Consciousness


Tony Wright - 2014
    Modern science has overlooked this in order to maintain that we are at the pinnacle of our evolution. However, the halt in brain expansion explains not only recently uncovered anomalies within the human brain but also the global traditions of an earthly paradise lost and of humanity’s degeneration from our original state of perpetual wonder and joy. Drawing on more than 20 years of research, authors Tony Wright and Graham Gynn explore how our modern brains are performing far below their potential and how we can unlock our higher abilities and return to the euphoria of Eden. They explain how for millions of years early forest-dwelling humans were primarily consuming the hormone-rich sex organs of plants--fruit--each containing a highly complex biochemical cocktail evolved to influence DNA transcription, rapid brain development, and elevated neural and pineal gland activity. Citing recent neurological and psychological studies, the authors explain how the loss of our symbiotic fruit-based diet led to a progressive neurodegenerative condition characterized by aggressive behaviors, a fearful perception of the world, and the suppression of higher artistic, mathematical, and spiritual abilities. The authors show how many shamanic and spiritual traditions were developed to counteract our decline. They outline a strategy of raw foods, tantric sexuality, shamanic practices, and entheogen use to reverse our degeneration, restore our connection with the plant world, and regain the bliss and peace of the brain of Eden.