Mapping the Mind
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group, Limited
Published: 1998
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780297823308
Subjects: Neurophysiology; Psychophysiology; Brain, localization of functions; Human information processing
Description: "Mapping the Mind charts how human behaviour and culture have been moulded by the landscape of the brain. It shows how our personalities reflect the biological mechanisms underlying thought and emotion, and how behavioural eccentricities may be traced to abnormalities in the geography of an individual brain. Obsessions and compulsions, for example, seem to be caused by a stuck neural switch in a brain area which monitors the environment for danger; addiction, eating disorders and alcoholism stem from dysfunction in the brain's reward system; inability to change one's ideas suggests lack of activity in the frontal lobes where plans and high-level concepts are constructed - even belief in God has been linked to activity in a particular brain region. The differences between men's and women's brains, and between those of normal people and those with disorders such as dyslexia, autism, psychopathy, attention deficit, depression, mania and mood swings are also explored."--BOOK JACKET. "In this book - the first illustrated guide to the brain - Rita Carter draws on the latest in brain imaging to give extraordinary and accessible insights into how the brain works."--Jacket.