Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does--humans are a musical species. Oliver Sacks's compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological...

A critical analysis of the interaction between the mind and the body describes how the brain maps out every part of the body and the space around it and how the brain controls the ability to sense, move, and act in the physical world.

"The brain sometimes seems like a physical embodiment of the soul--a mysterious seat of our personality, intellect, and emotions. The roots of this notion run deep in our culture: From ancient philosophical concepts to modern psychological analysis, we've been idealizing the brain's role for eons. But the soul-like qualities of the brain are often more myth than fact, and in emphasizing them, we limit our understanding of ourselves. As neurobiologist...

Sergeant Andrus served in Co. D, 95th Illinois Infantry. Here are reprinted 61 letters written home during the war, beginning in September 1862 and continues through the end of the War. The regiment fought in the Vicksburg Campaign, the Red River Campaign, the pursuit of Sterling Price, Nashville, New Orleans, and Mobile.

Neuroscience long held that the hardware of the brain is immutable--that we are stuck with what we were born with. As science journalist Begley shows, however, recent pioneering experiments in the new science of neuroplasticity reveal that the brain is capable not only of altering its structure but also of generating new neurons, even into old age. The brain can adapt, heal, renew itself after trauma, and compensate for disability. Begley documents...

In the following pages I have attempted to summarize our knowledge regarding individual differences, more specifically those aspects of it which bear on the limits and range of human capacities, and to draw such inferences from the data available as the facts seem to warrant. Both the facts and the generalization may afford the reader some surprise, the former because many of the data collected will be treated in an unfamiliar way, the latter because...

"Based on a wildly popular Atlantic article: an astonishing investigation into the world of microbes, and the myriad ways they control how other creatures -- including humans -- act, feel, and think As we are now discovering, parasites -- microbes that cannot thrive and reproduce without another organism as a host -- are shockingly sophisticated and extraordinarily powerful. In fact, a plethora of parasites affect our behavior in ways we have barely...

Dr. Louann Brizendine, the founder of the first clinic in the country to study gender differences in brain, behavior, and hormones, turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one.

From the Publisher: The Camera My Mother Gave Me takes us through Susanna Kaysen's often comic, sometimes surreal encounters with all kinds of doctors-internists, gynecologists, "alternative health" experts-as well as with her boyfriend and her friends, when suddenly, inexplicably, "something went wrong" with her vagina.

Inspiring and informative, "Mindsight" offers exciting new proof that people aren't hardwired to behave in certain ways, but instead have the ability to harness the power of their minds to resculpt the neural pathways of their brains.