How it Works Inside Your Brain - October 2019

How it Works: Inside Your Brain - October 2019

English | 132 pages | PDF | 114 mb



It's no secret that the human brain is a marvellous thing. From the movements you rely on every day to the emotions you express, the dreams that feel real and the thoughts that whizz through your mind, the brain controls it all. Centuries of study have yielded many answers to its countless mysteries. We know about the synapses and neurons that make up the brain, and leading surgeons can now map someone's brain and perform once impossible operations. But there is still so much that we don't understand.

What does it really mean to be conscious? Why do we have cognitive biases when the facts contradict us? And why are some people psychopaths who see the world in a totally different way? In this bookyou'll explore some of the answers to these questions, chart the life of a pioneering neurosurgeon and relive some of the most bizarre experiments ever conducted in the endless quest to understand the brain.



BIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN

010 Evolution of the brain

014 Left versus right

016 Brain cells

017 The blood-brain barrier

020 The pituitary gland

021 Self-cleaning brain

022 Science of emotions

028 How do we mal{e memories?

BRAIN POWER

O32 Power of imagination

O36 How the brain sees

O38 Facial recognition

042 Anticipatory timing

043 Decision-making

044 Fight or fight

NEUROSCIENCE

050 What is consciousness?

056 Why do we sleep and dream?

o6o Science of listening to music

o62 The study of neuroscience

064 Brain surgery

o68 Harvey Cushing

070 Neural prostheses

TRICKS OF THE MIND

074 Mindtricks

082 The placebo effect

o88 Cognitive biases

DAMAGE & DISEASE

096 Diseases of the brain

100 10 famous experiments

108 Psychopaths: mad or bad?

THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

114 Brain technology

122 Future of brain surgery

124 The next steps in neuroscience