Sleep. Memory. Pleasure. Fear. Language. We experience these things every day, but how do our brains create them?

Your Brain, Explained is a personal tour around your gray matter. Neuroscientist Marc Dingman gives you a crash course in how your brain works and explains the latest research on the brain functions that affect you on a daily basis.

You'll also discover what happens when the brain doesn't work the way it should, causing problems such as insomnia, ADHD, depression, or addiction. You'll learn how neuroscience is working to fix these problems, and how you can build up your defenses against the most common faults of the mind.

Along the way you'll find out:

· Why brain training games don't prevent dementia

· What it's like to remember every day of your life as if it were yesterday

· Which popular psychiatric drug was created from German rocket fuel

· How you might unknowingly be sabotaging your sleep

Drawing on the author's popular YouTube series, 2-minute Neuroscience, this is a friendly, engaging introduction to the human brain and its quirks from the perspective of a neuroscientist--using real-life examples and the author's own eye-opening illustrations. Your brain is yours to discover!
A fascinating read which I fully recommend

Well written and easy to read - perfect for the layperson, even the informaton about neuroscience is written in a way that you can understand if you don't yet have any understanding about the brain.

I've studied psychology, so some of this was a reminder of what I already knew; some of it contained newer information and research since I studied the subject, and some of it was completely new to me.

If you're at all interested in how your brain works, this is worth a read.

This is a very informative read, packed with interesting information that I'm sure anyone who's interested in the topic will find both, useful and enjoyable! Will definitely recommend.

A concise and simple to understand introduction to psychology! I wish I had read it before my A-level exam because it explained some things even better than my teacher did

This was a great book for learning more about the brain in an easy to understand way. I recommend this to anyone wanting an understandable, interesting book to learn about the most important of subjects.

Your Brain, Explained was an overview and studies on how they brain works. As someone who is fascinated with the brain and it's functions, I found this to be interesting but not overly in-depth. It was enjoyable easy read. If you have interest in neuroscience, this is a great start.




#brain #neuroscience #Netgalleyarc

This isn't so much an overview of neuroscience as a series of case studies that illustrate how different parts of the brain work. It was fascinating and easy to read. I was sorry when it ended. I hope the author will produce a second book on the subject.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

It’s fascinating to think that everything we know, everything we feel, our entire sense of self, our connection to humanity and the insights from the generations that have come before us, is the result of electrical activity spiking in a wrinkled 3 pound mass of cells that lives in the dark and cushioned recesses provided by our skulls.

More accessible than most of the books that are available on this subject, the author of “Your Brain, Explained” - neuroscientist and professor Marc Dingman, PHD- does a fabulous job at unpacking some of the deepest mysteries behind our brains and how they do their magical work.

The book is organized in chapters based on core brain functions, casting a very wide net including: language, memory, sleep, sadness, fear, pain, pleasure, movement, vision and attention. Drawing on the latest scientific knowledge, the author covers brain structure, neurotransmitters, and the networks and connections required to support each function, as well as debunking related myths along the way. Each chapter is augmented by interesting, (and sometimes downright eerie) case studies of patients with specific brain injuries caused by stroke or illness that have helped scientist identify and correlate affected brain areas to corresponding loss of function. Similar to a tiny version of the wonderful works of Oliver Sacks, (who was and still is, one of my literary heroes) I found these case histories incredibly engaging, not to mention perfectly suited to serve as the introduction to the scientific insights provided on the topic.

We are learning much about the brain, and at the same time learning more about what we still need to learn. Dingman’s basic premise is that the brain is much more complex than originally thought, and early theories that attempted to simplify brain functions to a single neurotransmitter or brain network are rapidly losing favor. Even this book, with its well-crafted and expert smattering of research and insight will likely prove itself obsolete before too long.

I loved this book, and found its well written and easily digestible content in a subject that is typically so impenetrable a breath of fresh air. I recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in a fascinating tour of current neuroscience, written entirely for the layperson.

A big thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an advance review copy of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Note re Trigger Warnings: Unfortunately, many early brain studies were structured around pinpointing impact after the creation of horrific brain injuries in animals, a process which is thankfully no longer deemed ethical. The results of most of these studies are covered at only a high level in this book, however the author provided a warning for one section of this book involving motor cortex experiments on dogs which was several pages long, and at his direction, I skipped this section. The book also contains one case study involving child abuse, as well as a detailed discussion on depression.

Sometimes books like this have a tendancy to get bogged down in the finer points of the science and technical and scientific terms and are inaccessible for the casual interested reader, however this I found relatively easy to follow and extremely absorbing ! The book is fairly short and for anyone interested in this area without any knowledge of the subject then I would recommend

Explains a lot about the brain. Post-reading, it's all understandable, learnable, and teachable. I will use this book in the classroom and recommend it to my students. 5/5

This is a highly readable and informative overview of the brain. It is packed with interesting details which convey the wonder of the brain, as well as its astonishing quirks and limitations.

The book covers an enormous range of issues, moving briskly with historical examples and thoughtful analysis. For example, there are discussions of Insomnia, Narcolepsy, Caffeine, Language acquisition, Depression, Sadness, Brain-computer interfaces and illnesses such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers. And many, many more issues.

I was particularly struck by how careful the author is to make complicated subjects accessible. Each time new parts of the brain are cited, diagrams are provided to show exactly where they are located. New terminology is explained, including Latinised spellings such as ‘Amygdalae’ for the plural of ‘Amygdala.’

The author was also careful about the sensitivities of readers. Before discussing some old research on dogs he clearly flags up its unethical and objectionable nature so that readers can choose to skip the details, if they prefer. He is careful to debunk myths (such as carrots improve eyesight), whilst also explaining quirks of the animal kingdom, such as chickens’ eyesight being so limited as to meet the human definition for being legally blind.

The book is very much a summary, so it is selective and it does not try to be exhaustive in its historical examples. For example, the famous nineteenth century brain injury of Phineas Cage is not discussed. Nevertheless, around 12% of the book is footnotes and additional details, so readers always have a starting point to follow up points of interest.

I enjoyed the book and will look forward to further books by the author. However, I should add that these comments are based on a review copy which the publisher kindly sent me.

Amazing book that goes over areas of the brain; excellent for those that want to tip their toe into neuroscience without getting a text book and a headache.. This is a wonderful dream of a book that just keeps piling on the fascinating with each chapter.

This was a great intro into neuroscience and how the brain works. There were a few parts that were a bit of a slog to get through, but on the whole this was an interesting and informative read.

I haven’t read books about the brain but I would say that this one does a good job of providing information in an interesting and easy to understand way.

The stories are also intriguing right from the start.

I was given a copy of this book for purpose of review

I found the book to be easy to understand and to follow the information on how the brain works.I was glad to find that the memory assistance apps just teach you how to play memory assistance apps, nothing more as i expected.

My mom would have been disappointed to learn that yes, i can sit close to the TV and not go blind, eye strain yes but not blind. The author does a excellent job of explaining parts of the brain with images and easy to follow explanations.

I had studied the brain while ion college and this book explained many issues that I never heard before. Very much worth reading and very enjoyable.

A fascinating and informative read. Your Brain Explained comprises of chapters dedicated to different topics such as learning, memory, sleep, etc. Each chapter contains an interesting case relevant to the designated topic and is often accompanied by basic illustration and anatomy. The writing style is easy to understand and follow. Plus, the diagrams are a great addition. The only thing that detracted from my reading experience was how certain words were disjointed (for example, like this: he – llo) throughout the text although, I think that may just be with my device.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable read and I’d recommend this book for people who are interested in neuroscience and/or popular science.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A pretty informative read on what’s going on in our brains, I found this book to be a good introduction to the topic: it doesn’t go too deep into complex science, but it also provides enough to be interesting even if, like me, you already know a little. What I already knew was there, so that’s consolidated knowledge for me, and what I didn’t, well, now I have new things to mull over.

On top of anatomy, the author also covers current (and past) research about the brain—apparently, there was a time when people found it OK to experiment on dogs’ brains without anaesthetising the poor pups—as well as brain chemistry and pharmacology. Several case studies, usually found at the beginning of each chapter, illustrate each topic, the latter ranging from language to memory, from addiction to fear, and more. The part about sleep especially interested me, due to my own difficulties with that—I knew that I shouldn’t drink coffee too late in the day (in my family, we used to say “never after 1 pm”) but now I also know that it’s because of caffeine’s long half-life, and putting numbers on this definitely helps enforce the point.

One mistake I made with this book, though, was to not always read it at the right moments. So don’t be like me, don’t read it right before bed when you’re already half-asleep. It won’t do it justice. (I basically had to read a couple of chapters again the next day to make sure I’d get everything. It’s not complicated writing or concepts, but that’s on a fully awake brain, right!)

Conclusion: A strong “introduction”, that actually also has good nuggets for people who have some knowledge on the topic.

I took an introductory neuroscience class about 15 years ago, but this book explained some concepts better and more clearly than what I recall from the class. The author really loves this topic, and that shines through. Each unusual case that sheds some tiny bit of light is presented with enthusiasm and respect. There are a number of aspects of the brain's functions that can't presently be fully explained, but in reading this book, you gain confidence that perhaps someday we will understand our minds even better.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC.

Fascinating and informative
The author has found that sweet spot between explaining clearly without loads of technical jargon but not to cross the line and be condescending.
Within the book there are “case studies” / stories to provide a basis of what the science is and these really help make it a book that is informative and still enjoyable to read

Different from, but as good as, “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons”

I recently read Sam Kean’s “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons” and loved it. I think Kean is a great science writer so I did not think that Marc Dingman’s book could compete with it. I was wrong. I enjoyed the Dingman book as much as the Kean book. The styles of the two books are different, not surprisingly, since Dingman is a neuroscientist and Kean isn’t so they each have their own perspectives. Kean’s book is a little lighter than Dingman’s, but Dingman makes up for it with more thorough explanations. There is overlap between the two books, in content and approach, but since the writing styles are different, both books are worth reading. I cannot recommend one over the other, but you can do what I did, and read both. It will be worth it.