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Epicurus.com - A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $10.85
Your Save: $ 5.10 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 612
EAN: 9780375701078
ISBN: 0375701079
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 2002-01-08
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2002-01-08
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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John Ratey, bestselling author and clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, here lucidly explains the human brain’s workings, and paves the way for a better understanding of how the brain affects who we are. Ratey provides insight into the basic structure and chemistry of the brain, and demonstrates how its systems shape our perceptions, emotions, and behavior. By giving us a greater understanding of how the brain responds to the guidance of its user, he provides us with knowledge that can enable us to improve our lives.
In A User’s Guide to the Brain, Ratey clearly and succinctly surveys what scientists now know about the brain and how we use it. He looks at the brain as a malleable organ capable of improvement and change, like any muscle, and examines the way specific motor functions might be applied to overcome neural disorders ranging from everyday shyness to autism. Drawing on examples from his practice and from everyday life, Ratey illustrates that the most important lesson we can learn about our brains is how to use them to their maximum potential.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The best
Comment: Ratey makes clear that the an individual's brain is under continuous development from conception to death, and is affected by influences on the mother, such as smoking, before conception. The brain has many parts which work together in changing combinations to perform various functions. The book has many diagrams explaining these facts. Many similarities of other animals to humans are explained. Also, how the brain affects behavior and is affected by it. It is also made clear that the story is still being written by researchers around the world. The reader is challenged to absorb this densely-packed information.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disorders Run In My Family, Interesting and easy to read
Comment: I initially bought this book for the chapters on perception. In living with a bipolar and alcoholic father, ADHD niece, Asperger nephew, depressed sister, and an "at wit's end" mother trying to hold it all together, I am now glad I bought the book for much more. It doesn't go into details about how to cope with these kind of issues, but gives a great understanding of the "how" it was possible for these issues to be derived in the first place. It is not a book for disorders nor does it give advice. It simply helps you understand how the brain works from infancy onward. I think if you have the need to buy any book for disorders, this would be a great supplement for a more fundamental basis. I only wish it had more "real life" stories like the first chapter, which I think you can view online.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Use your brain - change your life
Comment: This book is insightful, very readable and inspirational. Understand the working of your brain and live life to the fullest.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Definitely not a user's guide. It's much better than that
Comment: The introduction to this book captivated me, where the author describes the plasticity and flexibility of the neuronal connections and the "reconnections" that can take place after brain injuries. This book is awe inspiring when talking about the marvelous mechanisms at play and the grandeur of our brains.
This was the first book on neurosciences that I read and it proved a very good and complete introduction to the topic. The book is extensive and covers a wide range of aspects. I would not regard it as a user's guide to the brain, since it definitely is not a "How to use your brain..." book. Advise and recommendations for the care of your brain are scarce and only to be found in the last chapters.
I would say that it is a comprehensive science book that outlines and summarizes the investigations done in neurosciences. I know too little on this subject to say this, but the topics that I have read in other books are covered at least briefly in this one. Starting with this book, you can read more detail on any brain function or process that you are interested in.
This book introduces perception and the 5 senses, attention and consciousness, memory (long and short lived), motion, mathematical and musical abilities, language, emotions, etc. along with several clinical cases in each section which lead to a better understanding of how the various parts of the brain work and interact.
It is a long and sometimes difficult to read book, but every bit of it is worth the effort.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, Interesting, but Lacks Citations
Comment: "A User's Guide to the Brain" is an intriguing essay on the mind, as the subtitle implies: Perception, Attention and the Four Theatres of the Brain. Written in 2001, the 401 pages over ten chapters is more of Dr. Ratey's personal memoirs and anecdotes written in the first person than a medically written essay without any interjected opinions or afterthoughts, which is more of what I was hoping to find. Dr. Ratey, however, makes several claims and refers to several papers without the much needed citations that allow the reader to follow in the doctor's footsteps.
For example, on page 109, Dr. Ratey states, "There are countless reports in history about people with an extraordinary ability to know where they are going: pathfinders, guides, mariners, pioneers..." Being more of a general statement, it would not be reasonable for the reader to expect the author to cite the "countless reports," but in the next paragraph, Dr. Ratey states, "Joseph Kirschvink and researchers at the California Institute of Technology have identified the same kind of magnetite particles in human brain tissue." At the end of this statement, a footnote or an endnote should follow immediately, or at least an APA reference that allows the reader to investigate the claim further. It seems that the author's unwillingness to cite his sources means he expects his readers to believe whatever he says, and I understand I make take a few unhelpfuls for that, but when it comes to making a claim about a study, find or statistic, professional writing demands that such claims be backed up with a footnote, endnote or bibliographic reference. For general knowledge, a writer could do it all day long. But with medial science, no way.
Another example of a missing citation: page 263, paragraph 2. "Researchers Jenny Saffran and colleagues at the University of Rochester reveal a study showing that infants' learning ability may greatly exceed previous expectations." Which study? No reference, no citation, no follow-up possible.
On page 373: "One recent advance that seems straight out of science fiction is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)...Twelve patients diagnosed with OCD were given the stimulation at several different points on their skulls. The patients found that stimulation to the frontal lobe on the right side of the head resulted in a reduction in compulsions and an improved mood." Right there, at the end of that sentence, there needs to be a citation or link to the aforementioned "transcranial magnetic stimulation."--otherwise, as the author states, it might just _be_ science fiction. It's not? No? Then cite the source. In the very next statement, Dr. Ratey even mentions indirectly that his omissions are intentional: "More research needs to be completed before we truly understand the possibilities of this new technology." Dr. Ratey, it is your job as the writer to do that research. The reader's job is to be excited with your presentation and follow your work, not to do your work for you.
The missing citations are more of the fault of the editors at Pantheon books. I'm surprised the manuscript ever got past the senior editor. Until the myriad of missing citations are put into a revised first edition of "A User's Guide to the Brain," unfortunately, Dr. Ratey's work here cannot be accepted as conclusive. To avoid work, Dr. Ratey included a "suggested reading" list in the back, which conveniently frees him of his responsibility as an author. This type of text would be much improved and vastly more accepted if it were strictly a third person narrative. Otherwise, it's mostly hearsay, although we would like to believe Dr. Ratey has no intention to deceive his audience, credibility demands that no non-general claims are left unsubstantiated.
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