The dangers of illegal drugs are well known and rarely disputed, but how harmful are alcohol and tobacco by comparison? What are we missing by banning medical research into magic mushrooms, LSD and cannabis? Can they be sources of valuable treatments? The second edition of Drugs without the hot air looks at the science to allow anyone to make rational decisions based on objective evidence, asking: *What is addiction? Is there an addictive personality? *What is the role of cannabis in treating epilepsy? *How harmful is vaping? *How can psychedelics treat depression? *Where is the opioid crisis taking us?

What if you could harness the extraordinary power of your unconscious mind, which already determines so much of what you do, to achieve your goals?

Shockingly, we spend nearly half our day repeating things we've done in the past without thinking about them. How we respond to the people around us; the way we conduct ourselves in meetings; what we buy; when and how we exercise, eat and drink - a truly remarkable number of things we do every day, we do by habit.

And yet, whenever we want to change something about ourselves, we rely on willpower alone. We hope that our determination and intention will be enough to effect positive change. And that is why almost all of us fail.

Professor Wendy Wood is the world's foremost expert on habits. By drawing on three decades of original research, she explains the fascinating science of how we form habits and provides the key to unlocking our habitual mind in order to make the changes we seek.

Combining a potent mix of neuroscience, case studies and experiments conducted in her lab, Good Habits, Bad Habits is a comprehensive, accessible and highly practical book that will change the way you think about almost every aspect of your life.

Understanding the human mind and how it relates to the world that we experience has challenged philosophers for centuries. How then do we even begin to think about 'minds' that are not human? Science now has plenty to say about the properties of mind. In recent decades, the mind - both human and otherwise - has been explored by scientists in fields ranging from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found - including in plants, aliens, and God - Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured, and to think about the 'space of possible minds'. By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions. What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? The more we learn about the minds of other creatures, from octopuses to chimpanzees, and to imagine the potential minds of computers and alien intelligences, the greater the perspective we have on if and how our own is different. Ball's thrillingly ambitious The Book of Minds about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

Barbara Arrowsmith-Young was born with severe learning disabilities. As a child, she read and wrote everything backward, struggled to comprehend language, and was continually getting lost. But by relying on her formidable memory, she made her way to graduate school, where she chanced upon research that inspired her to invent cognitive exercises to fix her own brain. The Woman Who Changed Her Brain interweaves her personal tale with riveting case histories from more than thirty years of her work with both children and adults.
People with learning disorders have long been told that such difficulties are a lifelong condition. In clear and lucid writing, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain refutes that message, demonstrating with fascinating anecdotes that anyone with a learning disability can be radically trans-formed: Arrowsmith-Young is a living example. She founded the Arrowsmith School in Toronto in 1980 and then the Arrowsmith Program to train teachers to implement this effective methodology in schools all over North America.
This remarkable book by a brilliant pioneer deepens our understanding of how the brain works. Our brain shapes us, and this book offers clear and hopeful evidence of the corollary: that we can shape our brains.

A practical guide to meditation based on scientific research and ancient Buddhist practices.

In this modern digital age, many of us feel overwhelmed, panicked and exhausted. The practice of meditation is an antidote to that frenzied feeling.

Using scientific research to explain the benefits of ancient practices, this book gives readers an empirically sound and time-proven set of mental exercises that will allow the reader to overcome destructive emotions and patterns of behaviour, and bring inner peace and focus to their lives.

Practical and accessible, faithful to enduring traditions yet innovatively modern, these easy-to-follow techniques will benefit both experienced mediators and novices alike, and explain the wonders of meditation in a way never seen before.

**AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4** **A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH AND FINANCIAL TIMES** As a neurosurgeon, I lived in a world filled with fear and suffering, death and cancer. But rarely, if ever, did I think about what it would be like if what I witnessed at work every day happened to me. This book is the story of how I became a patient myself. Retired brain surgeon Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As Henry navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end. 'Magnificent' Rachel Clarke, author of Breath-taking 'Given its subject - broadly, death and disease - the book is unexpectedly fun, and the author pretty much irresistibly likable' Guardian 'Facing his own mortality, Marsh has written a vividly wry and honest book' The Times 'Marsh shares his journey with a dark yet whimsical humour, and ponders too the eternal mysteries of time' Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 2022

This set includes Volumes 1-7 of 15 short atlases reimagining the classic 5 volume Atlas of Human Central Nervous System Development. A handy paperback edition completes the coverage of the first trimester of human brain development. Serial sections from specimens between 4mm and 60mm are illustrated and annotated in great detail, together with 3D reconstructions. An introduction and glossary summarize these earliest stages of human Central Nervous System development. Key Features 1) Classic anatomical atlases 2) Detailed labeling of the earliest phases of prenatal neurological development 3) Appeals to neuroanatomists, developmental biologists and clinical practitioners. 4) Persistent relevance - brain development is not going to change.

Written for all therapists who want to understand this groundbreaking theory as it might actually show up in their day-to-day practice, this book offers a comprehensive approach to polyvagal-informed intervention. Worksheets and experiential exercises designed to map and shape autonomic response provide therapists with a road map for bringing polyvagal theory into their clinical practice.

Damage has been shortlisted for the 2021 William Hill Sports Book of The Year award! "This is the book that boxing has always needed...It is shattering yet moving, informative yet tender...An essential read for anyone who cares about boxing and its courageous, damaged fighters."-Donald McRae, The Guardian "Anyone who loves boxing-even the sport's most die-hard supporters-must take a longer and more serious look at the issues that Tris Dixon writes about with such nuance and humanity in Damage..."-Greg Bishop, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated It's an old story-a fighter gains fame, drives fast cars, makes piles of cash, and dates beautiful women. Then comes the fall-booze, drugs, depression, poverty, illness. This dark narrative has been playing out for a hundred years. Doctors first identified "Punch Drunk Syndrome" in 1928. It later became known as "Dementia Pugilistica." Today, we call it CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). The secret history of this disease in boxing has never been fully told- until now. In Damage, Tris Dixon uncovers the difficult truths of boxing and CTE and chronicles the lives of fighters affected by it. He interviews some of the sport's biggest names, some lesser-known journeymen, and highly respected trainers and other figures to try to understand why no one wants to discuss CTE or take responsibility for it. Ultimately, Dixon takes aim at what boxing can do to help the warriors who sacrifice their health seeking glory in the ring. Will this book finally drive the sport to address the issue and help fighters get the help they deserve?

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2021 'To compare any book to a Sacks is unfair, but this one lives up to it . . . I finished it feeling thrillingly unsettled, and wishing there was more.' - James McConnachie, Sunday Times In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, high school students develop contagious seizures. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees complain of headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night. These disparate cases are some of the most remarkable diagnostic mysteries of the twenty-first century, as both doctors and scientists have struggled to explain them within the boundaries of medical science and - more crucially - to treat them. What unites them is that they are all examples of a particular type of psychosomatic illness: medical disorders that are influenced as much by the idiosyncratic aspects of individual cultures as they are by human biology. Inspired by a poignant encounter with the sleeping refugee children of Sweden, Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan travels the world to visit other communities who have also been subject to outbreaks of so-called 'mystery' illnesses. From a derelict post-Soviet mining town in Kazakhstan, to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua via an oil town in Texas, to the heart of the Maria Mountains in Colombia, O'Sullivan hears remarkable stories from a fascinating array of people, and attempts to unravel their complex meaning while asking the question: who gets to define what is and what isn't an illness? Reminiscent of the work of Oliver Sacks, Stephen Grosz and Henry Marsh, The Sleeping Beauties is a moving and unforgettable scientific investigation with a very human face. 'A study of diseases that we sometimes say are 'all in the mind', and an explanation of how unfair that characterisation is.' - Tom Whipple, The Times Books of the Year

As a neurosurgeon, I lived in a world filled with fear and suffering, death and cancer. But rarely, if ever, did I think about what it would be like if what I witnessed at work every day happened to me. This book is the story of how I became a patient myself. As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end.

The Textbook of Ion Channels is a set of three volumes providing a wide-ranging reference source on ion channels for students, instructors, and researchers. Ion channels are membrane proteins that control the electrical properties of neurons and cardiac cells, mediate the detection and response to sensory stimuli like light, sound, odor, and taste, and regulate the response to physical stimuli like temperature and pressure. In non-excitable tissues, ion channels are instrumental for the regulation of basic salt balance that is critical for homeostasis. Ion channels are located at the surface membrane of cells, giving them the unique ability to communicate with the environment, as well as the membrane of intracellular organelles, allowing them to regulate internal homeostasis. Ion channels are fundamentally important for human health and diseases, and are important targets for pharmaceuticals in mental illness, heart disease, anesthesia, pain and other clinical applications. The modern methods used in their study are powerful and diverse, ranging from single ion-channel measurement techniques to models of ion channel diseases in animals, and human clinical trials for ion channel drugs. All three volumes give the reader an introduction to fundamental concepts needed to understand the mechanism of ion channels, a guide to the technical aspects of ion channel research, offer a modern guide to the properties of major ion channel families, and include coverage of key examples of regulatory, physiological, and disease roles for ion channels.

This Handbook provides an overview of neuroscience-driven research methodologies and how those methodologies might be applied to theory-based research in the nascent field of neuroentrepreneurship. A key challenge of this field is that few neuroscientists are trained as entrepreneurship scholars and few entrepreneurship scholars are trained as neuroscientists, but this book skillfully bridges that gap. Expert contributors include concrete examples of new ways to conduct research in their contributions, which have the potential to shed light onto areas such as decision making and opportunity recognition and allow neuroentrepreneurs to ask different, perhaps better, questions than ever before. This Handbook also presents current thinking and examples of pioneering work, serves as a reference for those wishing to incorporate these methods into their own research, and provides several helpful discussions on the nature of answerable questions using neuroscience techniques. Neuroentrepreneurship is an important, emerging field for neuroscientists and entrepreneurship scholars alike. For the former audience, this book presents concrete research questions and entrepreneurship applications; for the latter, it serves as a primer and introduction to neuroscientific methods. Graduate students studying entrepreneurship, and practitioners who are keen to promote innovation and entrepreneurial skills in their leadership, will also find this Handbook to be of interest. Contributors include: W. Becker, C. Bellavitis, M.C. Boardman, M. Colosio, C. Couffe, M. Day, P.M. de Holan, A.A. Gorin, S. Guillory, N. Krueger, A. Passarelli, V. Perez-Centeno, C. Reeck, L. Schjoedt, K.G. Shaver, A. Sud, T. Treffers, M.K. Ward

This unique textbook explores core cognitive psychology topics from an innovative new perspective, focusing on key real-world issues to show how we understand and experience the world. The book examines compelling topics such as creativity, problem-solving, reasoning, rationality and language, all within the context of modern 21st century life. Each chapter demonstrates how this vibrant and constantly evolving discipline is at the heart of some of the biggest issues facing us all today. The last chapter discusses the future of cognitive psychology, which includes guidance on conducting rigorous, replicable research and how to use skills from cognitive psychology to be an effective student. Packed with pedagogical features, each chapter includes boxed examples of cognitive psychology in the real world and engaging ‘try it yourself’ features. Each chapter also includes objectives, a range of illustrative figures, chapter summaries, key readings and a glossary for ease of use. The book is fully supported by original online resources for students and instructors. Offering a new model for the study of cognitive psychology that brings the subject alive, the book is essential reading for all students studying psychology and related disciplines.

The physical world is infinitely complex, yet most of us are able to find our way around it. We can walk through unfamiliar streets while maintaining a sense of direction, take shortcuts along paths we have never used and remember for many years places we have visited only once. These are remarkable achievements.

In Wayfinding, Michael Bond explores how we do it: how our brains make the ‘cognitive maps’ that keep us orientated, even in places that we don’t know. He considers how we relate to places, and asks how our understanding of the world around us affects our psychology and behaviour.

The way we think about physical space has been crucial to our evolution: the ability to navigate over large distances in prehistoric times gave Homo sapiens an advantage over the rest of the human family. Children are instinctive explorers, developing a spatial understanding as they roam. And yet today few of us make use of the wayfaring skills that we inherited from our nomadic ancestors. Most of us have little idea what we may be losing.

Bond seeks an answer to the question of why some of us are so much better at finding our way than others. He also tackles the controversial subject of sex differences in navigation, and finally tries to understand why being lost can be such a devastating psychological experience.

For readers of writers as different as Robert Macfarlane and Oliver Sacks, Wayfinding is a book that can change our sense of ourselves.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come. What if intelligent life on earth not only evolved on land, but also in the sea? Other Minds is a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind's fitful development over millennia, Other Minds explores the incredible evolutionary journey of the cephalopods. What kind of intelligence do they possess? And how did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? Heralded as the 'scuba-diving philosopher' when Other Minds first published, Peter Godfrey-Smith explores the underwater world and the concept of sentience to trace the question of inner life back to its roots. By comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Other Minds casts crucial new light on the octopus mind - and on our own.

For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world-not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought. A Thousand Brains heralds a revolution in the understanding of intelligence. It is a big-think book, in every sense of the word. One of the Financial Times' Best Books of 2021 One of Bill Gates' Five Favorite Books of 2021

Entrepreneurial cognition research is at a crossroads, where static views give way to dynamic approaches. This Handbook draws on a variety of perspectives from experts in the field of entrepreneurial cognition to highlight the key elements in a socially-situated view, where cognition is action-oriented, embodied, socially-situated, and distributed. It provides readers with some of the most up-to-date approaches to entrepreneurial cognition research and is designed to be an invaluable and timesaving companion for entrepreneurial cognition researchers. With insights from leading entrepreneurial cognition researchers the Handbook offers a comprehensive literature review of the field. Readers seeking to better understand and participate in some of the most up-to-date approaches to entrepreneurial cognition research will find this Handbook to be especially helpful in their research. Established scholars who are new to the research area will also be interested in this book. University libraries with research-focused business schools will also benefit from this Handbook. Contributors: R.A. Baron, D.A. Baucus, M.S. Baucus, B. Bird, M. Brannback, M.S. Cardon, A.L. Carsrud, E.T. Chan, J.S. Clarke, A.C. Corbett, J.P. Cornelissen, M. Drnovsek, M-D. Foo, D.P. Forbes, D.A. Gregoire, M. Hayek, J.S. McMullen, J.R. Mitchell, R.K. Mitchell, C.Y. Murnieks, L.E. Palich, B. Randolph-Seng, M.R. Ryan, S.D. Sarasvathy, A. Slavec, W.A. Williams, Jr., M.S. Wood, M.A. Zachary

A groundbreaking new look at how we pay attention that can help us perform better - and be happier - in the digital world. Psychologist Gloria Mark began researching how technology affects human attention when offices were first getting computers. Over the last 30 years, she has tracked changes in our attention spans and stress levels, and in the fundamental way our brains process information. Now in Attention Span, Dr Mark shows how much of what we think we know about attention is wrong. She explores the current crisis of focus and productivity that is so deeply entwined with rising rates of anxiety and depression, and investigates what we might be able to do about it. Delving into the newly celebrated concept of 'kinetic attention', she introduces a more balanced understanding of the rhythm between deep focus and less focused states, which may actually serve to make us happier and more productive in the long term.

Uniting Thomas Lawson's essays on the cognitive science of religion, this volume explores theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena such as religion, the role of imagination, and the experiments that emerge from these theories. The book begins with Lawson's influential essay “Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion,” which was the first to employ the phrase, and has since become widely adopted in many different disciplines. It signals to scholars in the humanities that the cognitive revolution has finally reached them and serves to introduce them to the world of science. The rest of the book focuses on theoretical issues in the study of cultural phenomena and describes experiments by scholars working on the connections between cognition and culture. Described as "the grandfather of the cognitive science of religion," Lawson offers a unique perspective on the development of the field and the principles that underlie it, which will be relevant to both newcomers and established scholars.

* Provides very accessible coverage of a complex topic. * Includes a wealth of open-ended activities, practical strategies and case studies. * Blends together theory and practice to increase the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence of early years practitioners. * Covers a range of hot topics, considering how poverty, adversity, and mental health, all affect the developing child.