Welcome to Your Brain : The Science of Jet Lag, Love and Other Curiosities of Life [UK ed.] 9781407022185, 9781846040771

Table of contents :
COVER
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Your Brain?
INTRODUCTION Your Brain: A User’s Guide

PART 1 – YOUR BRAIN AND THE WORLD
CHAPTER 1: Can You Trust Your Brain?
Looking at a photograph is harder than playing chess
Are we in our right minds?
Myth: We use only 10 percent of our brains
CHAPTER 2: Gray Matter and the Silver Screen: Popular Metaphors of How the Brain Works
Depictions of brain disorders in the movies
Head injury and personality
Can memories be erased?
Schizophrenia in the movies—A Beautiful Mind
CHAPTER 3: Thinking Meat: Neurons and Synapses
Your brain uses less power than your refrigerator light
Loewi’s dream of the neurotransmitter
Is your brain like a computer?
CHAPTER 4: Fascinating Rhythms: Biological Clocks and Jet Lag
Practical tip: Overcoming jet lag
Practical tip: Frequent jet lag and brain damage
Speculation: Morning people and night people
CHAPTER 5: Bring Your Swimsuit: Weight Regulation
Calorie restriction and life extension
Practical tip: Tricking your brain into helping you lose weight

PART 2 – COMING TO YOUR SENSES
CHAPTER 6: Looking Out for Yourself: Vision
Animal research and “lazy eye”
The neuron that loved Michael Jordan
Myth: Blind people have better hearing
CHAPTER 7: How to Survive a Cocktail Party: Hearing
Practical tip: How to prevent hearing loss
Practical tip: Improving hearing with artificial ears
Practical tip: How to hear better on your cell phone in a loud room
CHAPTER 8: Accounting for Taste (and Smell)
A seizure of the nose, or sneezing at the sun
Why mice don’t like Diet Coke
CHAPTER 9: Touching All the Bases: Your Skin’s Senses
Why can’t you tickle yourself?
Practical tip: Does acupuncture work?
Practical tip: Referred pain

PART 3 – HOW YOUR BRAIN CHANGES THROUGHOUT LIFE
CHAPTER 10: Growing Great Brains: Early Childhood
Myth: Listening to Mozart makes babies smarter
Early life stress and adult vulnerability
CHAPTER 11: Growing Up: Sensitive Periods and Language
Is language innate?
Is music like a language?
CHAPTER 12: Rebels and Their Causes: Childhood and Adolescence
Practical tip: Improving your brain with video games
Brain growth and intelligence
CHAPTER 13: An Educational Tour: Learning
Practical tip: Should you cram for an exam?
Why are some things easier to learn than others?
Practical tip: Put it out of your mind
CHAPTER 14: Reaching the Top of the Mountain: Aging
Practical tip: How can you protect your brain as you get older?
I’m losing my memory. Do I have Alzheimer’s disease?
Are you born with all the neurons you’ll ever have?
CHAPTER 15: Is the Brain Still Evolving?
Understanding nature versus nurture
Machiavellian intelligence—a brain arms race?

PART 4 – YOUR EMOTIONAL BRAIN
CHAPTER 16: The Weather in Your Brain: Emotions
Emotions and memory
How does your brain know a joke is funny?
CHAPTER 17: Did I Pack Everything? Anxiety
Myth: The car-crash effect
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Practical tip: How to treat a phobia
CHAPTER 18: Happiness and How We Find It
Happiness around the world
How scientists measure happiness
Practical tip: How to increase your happiness
CHAPTER 19: What’s It Like in There? Personality
Domesticating the brain
CHAPTER 20: Sex, Love, and Pair-Bonding
Studying flirtation
Imaging orgasm
Myth: Men learn to be gay

PART 5 – YOUR RATIONAL BRAIN
CHAPTER 21: One Lump or Two: How You Make Decisions
Practical tip: Maximizers and satisficers
Practical tip: Can willpower be trained?
CHAPTER 22: Intelligence (and the Lack of It)
Practical tip: How expectations influence test performance
Great brains in small packages
Myth: Brain folding is a sign of intelligence
CHAPTER 23: Vacation Snapshots: Memory
Forgetting your keys but remembering how to drive
Myth: Recovered memory
Practical tip: Can’t get it out of my head
CHAPTER 24: Rationality Without Reason: Autism
Monkey see, monkey do: Mirror neurons
Myth: Vaccines cause autism
CHAPTER 25: A Brief Detour to Mars and Venus: Cognitive Gender Differences
Myth: Women are moodier than men
Males are more variable than females
Quiz: How to think like a man

PART 6 – YOUR BRAIN IN ALTERED STATES
CHAPTER 26: Do You Mind? Studying Consciousness
The Dalai Lama, enlightenment, and brain surgery
Can brain scanners read your mind?
My brain made me do it: Neuroscience and the law
CHAPTER 27: In Your Dreams: The Neuroscience of Sleep
Wake up, little Susie: Narcolepsy and modafinil
Why are yawns contagious?
CHAPTER 28: A Pilgrimage: Spirituality
Meditation and the brain
The neuroscience of visions
CHAPTER 29: Forgetting Birthdays: Stroke
Practical tip: Warning signs of stroke—and what to do
CHAPTER 30: A Long, Strange Trip: Drugs and Alcohol
Ecstasy and Prozac
Does marijuana cause lung cancer?
Hit me again: Addiction and the brain
Practical tip: Drinking and pregnancy
CHAPTER 31: How Deep Is Your Brain? Therapies that Stimulate the Brain’s Core
Interfaces between brains and machines
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
COPYRIGHT