A Molecule Away From Madness Tales Of The Hijacked Brain

Author : Sara Manning Peskin
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324002387
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain written by Sara Manning Peskin and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Riveting stories of the brain on the brink, from an acclaimed cognitive neurologist. 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 gripping accounts of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake. A college student cannot remember if she has eaten breakfast. By dinner, she is strapped to a hospital bed, convinced she is battling zombies. A man planning to propose marriage instead becomes violently enraged, gripped by body spasms so severe that he nearly bites off his own tongue. One after another, poor farmers in South Carolina drop dead from a mysterious epidemic of dementia. With an intoxicating blend of history and intrigue, Sara Manning Peskin invites readers to play medical detective, tracing each diagnosis from the patient to an ailing nervous system. Along the way, Peskin entertains with tales of the sometimes outlandish, often criticized, and forever devoted scientists who discovered it all. Peskin never loses sight of the human impact of these conditions. Alzheimer’s Disease is more than the gradual loss of a loved one; it can be a family’s multigenerational curse. The proteins that abound in every cell of our bodies are not simply strings of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon; they are the building blocks of our personalities and relationships. A Molecule Away from Madness is an unputdownable journey into the deepest mysteries of our brains.

Author : Jay Ingram
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300189893
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fatal Flaws written by Jay Ingram and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVThe story of the revolutionary science that is unraveling the mysteries of mad cow and other fatal brain diseases/div

Author : W.R. Klemm
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400710976
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Atoms of Mind written by W.R. Klemm and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the author’s view of how the mind “thinks” at various levels of operation. These levels include nonconscious mind (as in spinal/brainstem reflexes and neuroendocrine controls), subconscious mind, and conscious mind. In the attempt to explain conscious mind, there is considerable critique of arguments over whether or not free will is an illusion. Finally, the author summarizes current leading theories for consciousness (Bayesian probability, chaos, and quantum mechanics) and then presents his own theory based on patterns of nerve impulses in circuits that are interlaced coherently into larger networks.

Author : Stephen Trzeciak, M.D.
Publisher : St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN 13 : 1250809053
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Wonder Drug written by Stephen Trzeciak, M.D. and published by St. Martin's Essentials. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pair of doctors team up to illuminate, through neuroscience and captivating stories from their clinical practice, how serving others—and pitching in to the world in general—is a secret superpower. If a doctor’s prescription could bring you: - Longer life - Better health - More energy and resilience - Less burnout, depression and anxiety - More happiness, fulfillment and well-being - More personal and professional success (including higher income) - And, no harmful side effects Would you take it? In Wonder Drug, physician scientists Stephen Trzeciak, M.D., and Anthony Mazzarelli, M.D., illuminate, through neuroscience and captivating stories from their clinical practices, how being a giving, other-focused person is a secret superpower. Serving others—and pitching in to the world in general—is the evidence-based way to live your life. Kinder people not only live longer, they also live better. Science shows that serving others is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do. Wonder Drug will make you rethink your notions of “self-care” and “me time,” and realize that focusing on others is a potent antidote to the weariness that so many of us feel in modern times. Getting outside of your own head, outside the swirl of self-concern that may dominate your mental chatter, is, ironically, one of the best things you can do for yourself. Building upon their earlier work showing that, in the context of healthcare, having more compassion for patients is a powerful way to not only achieve better patient outcomes, but also promote well-being, resilience and resistance to burnout among healthcare workers, Trzeciak and Mazzarelli now extend their research to uncover how the power of serving others reaches far beyond the medical world and can be a life-changing therapy for everyone. Wonder Drug relates to the varying meanings of giving in real people’s daily lives. The stories in this book will convince and inspire you to make simple prism changes. You don’t need a total life upheaval, just a purposeful shift in mindset. In fact, the crucial first piece of the evidence-based prescription is this: start small. Per science, the best way to well-being and finding your true fulfillment is this: scan your orbit for the people around you in need of help, and go fill that need, as often as you can.

Author : David N. Rodriguez
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1669811107
Total Pages : 26 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tales of the Mind written by David N. Rodriguez and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is mainly about how to overcome certain things you face as life goes on and how to help others. For example, depression—a lot of people get lost in their minds because of depression. All those bad thoughts and feelings rush into their head for a split second, then a negative reaction always occurs. Then there are individuals who are misunderstood for the good things that they have done. So they turn bad because they want to be respected. They basically give up their ways to be accepted. But the book can help encourage them to not give up. And there are those who just need guidance in their life. Well, the book tells them to ask the Lord for wisdom and to ask him for forgiveness.

Author : David Castle
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781139451659
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Marijuana and Madness written by David Castle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-27 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of the psychiatry and neuroscience of Cannabis sativa (marijuana), with particular emphasis on psychotic disorders. It outlines developments in our understanding of the human cannabinoid system, and links this knowledge to clinical and epidemiological facts about the impact of cannabis on mental health. Clinically focused chapters review not only the direct psychomimetic properties of cannabis, but also the impact consumption has on the courses of evolving or established mental illness such as schizophrenia. A number of controversial issues are critically explored, including whether a discrete 'cannabis psychosis' exists, and whether cannabis can actually cause schizophrenia. Effects of cannabis on mood, notably depression, are reviewed, as are its effects on cognition. This book will be of interest to all members of the mental health team, as well as to neuroscientists and those involved in drug and alcohol research.

Author : Lisa Margonelli
Publisher : Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374712387
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Underbug written by Lisa Margonelli and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli, national bestselling author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, investigates the environmental and economic impact termites inflict on human societies in this fascinating examination of one of nature’s most misunderstood insects. Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition. Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite’s properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others—unearthing disquieting answers about the world’s most underrated insect and what it means to be human.

Author : Dr. Guy Leschziner
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250272378
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Man Who Tasted Words written by Dr. Guy Leschziner and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Man Who Tasted Words, Guy Leschziner leads readers through the senses and how, through them, our brain understands or misunderstands the world around us. Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are what we rely on to perceive the reality of our world. Our senses are the conduits that bring us the scent of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or the notes of a favorite song suddenly playing on the radio. But are they really that reliable? The Man Who Tasted Words shows that what we perceive to be absolute truths of the world around us is actually a complex internal reconstruction by our minds and nervous systems. The translation into experiences with conscious meaning—the pattern of light and dark on the retina that is transformed into the face of a loved one, for instance—is a process that is invisible, undetected by ourselves and, in most cases, completely out of our control. In The Man Who Tasted Words, neurologist Guy Leschziner explores how our nervous systems define our worlds and how we can, in fact, be victims of falsehoods perpetrated by our own brains. In his moving and lyrical chronicles of lives turned upside down by a disruption in one or more of their five senses, he introduces readers to extraordinary individuals, like one man who actually “tasted” words, and shows us how sensory disruptions like that have played havoc, not only with their view of the world, but with their relationships as well. The cases Leschziner shares in The Man Who Tasted Words are extreme, but they are also human, and teach us how our lives and what we perceive as reality are both ultimately defined by the complexities of our nervous systems.

Author : Jessica Lynn Powers
Publisher : Cinco Puntos Press
ISBN 13 : 1935955225
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book That Mad Game written by Jessica Lynn Powers and published by Cinco Puntos Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's it like to grow up during war? To be a victim of violence or exiled from your homeland, culture, family, and even your own memories? When America's talking heads talk about war, children and teenagers are often the forgotten part of the story. Yet who can forget images of the Vietnam "baby lift," when Amer-Asian children were flown out of Vietnam to be adopted by Americans? Who can forget the horror of learning that Iranian children were sent on suicide missions to clear landmines? Who wasn't captivated by stories of the "lost boys" of Sudan, traveling thousands of miles alone through the desert, seeking shelter and safety? From the cartel-terrorized streets of Ju rez to the bombed-out cities of Bosnia to Afghanistan under the Taliban, from Nazi-occupied Holland to the middle-class American home of a Vietnam vet, this collection of personal and narrative essays explores both the universal and particular experiences of children and teenagers who came of age during a time of war. J.L. Powers is the editor of Labor Pains and Birth Stories and the author of two young adult novels, most recently This Thing Called the Future, an alternative fantasy set in post-apartheid South Africa. She began collecting essays on children and war while pregnant with her first child and says, "The experience was both painful and uplifting, not unlike giving birth. The most memorable aspect of these essays is their stark portrayal of both survival and hope in the midst of incredible suffering."

Author : Christopher Kemp
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324005394
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation written by Christopher Kemp and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the brain helps us to understand and navigate space—and why, sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should. Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have—older than language. In Dark and Magical Places, Christopher Kemp embarks on a journey to discover the remarkable extent of what our minds can do. Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons that do it. Place cells. Grid cells. He examines how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of trying to leave through a painting. From the secrets of supernavigators like the indigenous hunters of the Bolivian rainforest to the confusing environments inhabited by people with place blindness, Kemp charts the myriad ways in which we find our way and explains the cutting-edge neuroscience behind them. How did Neanderthals navigate? Why do even seasoned hikers stray from the trail? What spatial skills do we inherit from our parents? How can smartphones and our reliance on GPS devices impact our brains? In engaging, engrossing language, Kemp unravels the mysteries of navigating and links the brain’s complex functions to the effects that diseases like Alzheimer’s, types of amnesia, and traumatic brain injuries have on our perception of the world around us. A book for anyone who has ever felt compelled to venture off the beaten path, Dark and Magical Places is a stirring reminder of the beauty in losing yourself to your surroundings. And the beauty in understanding how our brains can guide us home.