Brain Mysteries

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires.

Can the mind be explained by what we know about the brain? Is a person’s being determined by their body alone or by their mind and body as separate elements? In this incisive and engaging book, Wilder Penfield, whose work pioneered such research, shares insights into these and other questions, providing an in-depth look at the function of the brain and its relationship to the action of the mind.

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments - using such low-tech tools such as cotton swabs, glasses of water, and dime-store mirrors.

Brain, Nature, Mind, Universe is your gateway to the most astonishing wonders of science and the mysteries that continue to baffle experts. Delve into mind-bending facts and intriguing stories about everything from our brains to the cosmos. Each chapter reveals fascinating truths, quirky discoveries, and unsolved puzzles that will inspire curiosity in listeners of all ages.

Written by two world-renowned sleep and dream researchers, When Brains Dream debunks common myths while acknowledging the mysteries that persist around both the science and experience of dreaming.

For more than 40 years, the US government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the navy, air force, and army - and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs.

Kate Bennett vanished from a parking lot eleven years ago, leaving behind her husband and young daughter. When she shows up at a Montana gas station, clutching an infant and screaming for help, investigators believe she may have been abducted by a cult. Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.

People in Adenville are breathing a sigh of relief. It seems that Tom D. Fitzgerald, the Great Brain, has truly reformed. For months, not one kid has been swindled and not one stunt has been pulled. But when he gets a new bike for Christmas, the Great Brain heads full speed into his old ways. And this time his ideas are bigger than ever. He puts all of Adenville in fear of a prehistoric beast from Skeleton Cave, solves a mysterious bank robbery, and captures the ghost of Silverload Mine.

Tom Fitzgerald, better known as the Great Brain, is struggling to stay reformed now that his friends have threatened to shut him out if he pulls even one more swindle. But his younger brother, J. D., knows Tom's reformation makes for a dull life, and is not altogether unhappy - or blameless - when his brother's money-loving heart stealthily returns to business as usual.

Written by Dr. Teri James Bellis, one of the world's foremost authorities on APD, this is the first book on the subject that is completely accessible to the public. Through helpful case studies, you'll finally discover the answers you need, as well as proven strategies for living with APD. Comprehensive and powerfully prescriptive, this book contains vital information for anyone who suffers from this serious disorder.

For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.

The celebrated author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success has created his most ambitious and important work yet, a runaway international best seller that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to rethink their concept of God.

How do neurons turn into minds? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness.

Why do you love? Why do you lie? What makes you happy? Every thought you have comes from one place: your brain. But what makes it tick? How much of it have we decoded, and how much of it remains an impenetrable mystery? Join author and cartoonist Jorge Cham and neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin on a deep dive into the fascinating world of the human brain, in which they will explore questions such as: What is consciousness? Where is you in the brain? And do we have free will? All while illuminating everything we know (and DON’T know) about one of the most complex objects in the known universe.

Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas.

In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply their neuro-know-how to dissect the puzzle of what has happened to the zombie brain to make the undead act differently than their human prey. Combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles, Verstynen and Voytek show how zombism can be understood in terms of current knowledge regarding how the brain works.

What is this strange mental world that seems so essential to being human? The conscious mind brings together sensations, perceptions, thoughts and memories to generate the seamless movie of a person's life. It makes us aware of the world around us and our own self. How all this emerges from a kilogram of brain cells is one of the greatest unanswered questions.

Nick Hall, ausgestattet mit revolutionären Gehirnimplantaten, kann mit seinem Geist Gedanken lesen und auf das Internet zugreifen. Als eine skrupellose Terrorgruppe damit droht, internationale Stars live und vor den Augen der Welt zu töten, ist Nick die einzige Rettung. Doch stattdessen wird er zur Zielscheibe der mächtigsten Kräfte der Welt und erlebt einen schmerzhaften Verrat in seinem engsten Kreis – ein brutales Rennen gegen die Zeit beginnt! Gedankennetz basiert auf den realen Forschungen zu neuronalen Implantaten von Pionieren wie Elon Musk (Neuralink).

When Mia Sinclair-Kroner wakes from a coma, all she can remember are the movies she’s known and loved. Her college friends quickly assemble for a weekend party, in an effort to help her remember. But with old friends come old wounds, and it soon becomes clear that Mia’s accident might not have been an accident at all.