Brain Science

With schools becoming more competitive and technology becoming increasingly distracting, today's students face a minefield of obstacles to academic success. Doing well in school isn't just a matter of smarts or more studying: It takes good habits, practical tools - and a healthy brain. Change Your Brain, Change Your Grades draws on Dr. Amen's experience as a neuroscientist and psychiatrist as well as the latest brain science to help you study more effectively, learn faster, and stay focused so you can achieve your academic goals.

Did you know that parrotfish poop creates sandy beaches or that Sahara Desert dust helps trees grow in the Amazon Rainforest? In this fun, curiosity-fueled book, award-winning scientist and former EdTech COO Keryn Gold, PhD, MBA takes listeners on a wild ride through surprising science facts that reveal how bugs, beasts, oceans, forests—even space—are all connected.

The groundbreaking Dual-Brain Psychology theory revolutionizes our understanding of anxiety, depression, addiction, and PTSD. Based on over 30 years of research, this innovative approach reveals how childhood trauma affects brain hemispheres differently. Dr. Schiffer’s pioneering treatments, including infrared light therapy, have already transformed countless lives.

Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that's stressful for one person can be traumatizing for another.

Are art and science separated by an unbridgeable divide? Can they find common ground? In this book, neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel, whose remarkable scientific career and deep interest in art give him a unique perspective, demonstrates how science can inform the way we experience a work of art and seek to understand its meaning. Kandel illustrates how reductionism - the distillation of larger scientific or aesthetic concepts into smaller, more tractable components - has been used by scientists and artists alike to pursue their respective truths.

In a fascinating tour of creativity and the brain, Nancy Andreasen, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and the winner of the National Medal of Science, explores how the human brain achieves creative breakthroughs--in art, literature, music, and science--the role of genes and environment, extraordinary creativity vs. ordinary creativity, and the question of genius and insanity.

Every day you're driven nuts by the people around you making common sense errors and irrational decisions. Imagine what life would look like if you didn't have to waste time and energy dealing with stubborn, clueless, argumentative, defensive, or apathetic coworkers! Thank goodness Eric Bailey translates decades of brain science research into every-day language, helping you break through common communication barriers that will improve every relationship in your life.

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world.

The human brain is an extraordinary machine. Its ability to process information and adapt to circumstances by reprogramming itself is unparalleled and it remains the best source of inspiration for recent developments in artificial intelligence. In How We Learn, Stanislas Dehaene decodes the brain's biological mechanisms, delving into the neuronal, synaptic, and molecular processes taking place. He explains why youth is such a sensitive period, but assures us that our abilities continue into adulthood and that we can enhance our learning and memory at any age.

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.

The placebo effect, what is it and does it truly work? What are its health advantages, its medical benefits? What about weight loss and wrinkle creams? Is it your brain, or the supplement working? Is this a victory of your brain, or is this a win for medicine? Does the Placebo effect associate itself with hypnosis? How does it fit in with subconscious thinking? This book will teach you what multiple sclerosis is and how to comprehend its various subtypes and treatments.

Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey show us how to build habits that fill our lives with greater joy and satisfaction. Based on the latest neuroscience and attachment theory—but written in everyday language—The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People is practical and easy to comprehend. The authors provide exercises and tools you can put into practice immediately.

We’ve all heard the phrase “it’s not brain surgery.” But what exactly is brain surgery? It’s a profession that is barely a hundred years old and profoundly connects two human beings, but few know how it works, or its history. In this warm, rigorous, and deeply insightful book, Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz explores what it’s like to hold the scalpel, wield the drill, extract a tumor, fix a bullet hole, and remove a blood clot—when every second can mean life or death.

Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the internet is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds.

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.

Why do minds exist? How did mud and stone develop into beings that can experience longing, regret, love, and compassion - beings that are aware of their own experience? Until recently, science offered few answers to these existential questions. Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, the Self, and civilization emerged incrementally out of chaos.

Shaken Brain offers expert advice and urgently needed answers. Elizabeth Sandel, MD, is a board-certified physician who has spent more than three decades treating patients with traumatic brain injuries, training clinicians, and conducting research. Here she explains the scientific evidence for what happens to the brain and body after a concussion. And she shares stories from a diverse group of patients, educating listeners on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

The question is, how can you tell the President's brain is missing? And are we sure we need it back?

According to a poll from the American Psychological Association more than a quarter of U.S. adults say they’re so stressed they can’t function. But it’s not just adults. Teenagers and children are also experiencing the negative effects of stress. Blending brain science, biblical truth, and best practices, Stress Less provides hope and healing. From his PhD research, pastor Charles Stone presents nine actionable insights for those battling stress or who have friends or family with fear and anxiety.

In Practice the Pause, spiritual director and writer Caroline Oakes offers easy-to-understand explanations of how this new brain science is confirming what every spiritual tradition has been telling us for millennia: by practicing the pause, we become more self-aware and better able to understand others.