Your Brain, Explained explains almost everything you could possibly want to know about your brain. Easy to understand and informative.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to start on a path to better learn the workings of the human brain. I would especially recommend it to people who, like myself, are involved in computer science and artificial intelligence.

This book is a fun read that is a good starting place for young readers that wish to learn about the human brain. You will learn about memory from sea slugs with their siphon and gill as well as many other interesting tales. Again, I recommend this book for teens who have an interest in brain science.

What a wonderful book. Perfect for a layman like me to understand without being dumbed down like pop psychology usually does.

Two things that stand out:
1) The brain is not a simple organ. And it is ignorant to say that one part of the brain is responsible for one particular thing. It is a complex web and multiple parts of the brain are responsible for everything. So, depression isn't just a lack of serotonin, dopamine is not just the 'pleasure' neurotransmitter, amygdalae are not the fear center and so on.

2) What we know about the brain is a very small sub-section of things going on in the brain. Diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's will only be able to be treated when we understand what is happening much better. We either overestimate or underestimate, accurate guesses are far less common in neuroscience.

I also loved the stories. The author shares a lot of cases and then explains the concept. The stories made this book interesting. I wasn't bored once and I read this in one sitting, a stupendous feat considering that I am not a science student.

The organization of the chapters was well-made. Instead of talking about different parts of the brain and their functions, we talked about the major functions (like vision, attention, movement, learning, etc.) and then the brain areas that impact their functioning. It was much easier to grasp the text because of this organization structure.

All in all, good job. Well researched and well written. Certainly makes me want to pick up more such books.

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley.

Dingman has written a book that introduces the current state of neurosciene and what we know about the brain to readers that have no science or neuroscience background. The book is divided into ten chapters that cover a different function of the brain: fear; memory; sleep; language; sadness; movement; vision; pleasure; pain; and attention. Each chapter includes case studies, a brief summary of the function and specific area of the brain involved in that function and how that function was determined (i.e. experimental results), and a brief discussion of what happens when things go wrong in that section of the brain (e.g. Alzheimer's disease). The writing style is straight-forward with minimal technical jargon, which is explained and illustrated where necessary. The subject matter is interesting. However, I felt the book was somewhat dull (and rather superficial) and didn't convey the excitement the author felt about the subject.

NOTE: As a bonus, Dingman has a Youtube series (2-Minute Neuroscience) for additional information.

The first thing that I liked about this book is its plan which is reflected all too well in the Contents. The discussion of a single ‘subject’ brain is divided into different chapters, with each chapter focused on a particular emotion/concept/activity. Thus, we start with fear, followed by memory, sleep, language, sadness, movement, vision, pleasure, pain, and finally attention.

Each chapter is further divided into small, manageable sections, with each section devoted to a particular aspect of the topic. Marc always begins his discussion by citing a real-life example of any person who had had particular experiences. He draws your attention to the interesting and important aspects of the case at hand. Then he explains the case in terms of latest research findings. In this way, he starts with very easy to understand case study, makes you comfortable with the issue at hand, and then slowly builds up the story and introduces the various complexities of the subject to you. But as soon as he finds that the discussion is getting too serious and involved, he ends the discussion. By that time you are already familiar with the basic problem and the science behind it. If you are interested, you can explore more on that subject on internet, or refer to books on that subject — the writer has given full references at the end of the book.

The structure of the brain and the exact location of any particular region is indicated by proper diagrams. However, after few chapters, the information load becomes difficult to handle and you need to look back at previous pages to compare the present discussion to that presented earlier. This is easy in a paperback, but might be troublesome in Kindle. So I advise the reader to make use of bookmarks extensively. But the best approach would be to read the book with a notebook and pen in your hand. Keep making notes of the various diagrams and discussions. This would definitely enrich your experience.

One suggestion to the writer and publisher:- adding one complete diagram with labels indicating various regions of the brain would help. Though individual regions are introduced one by one in the book — and it is indeed justified so as not to overwhelm the reader — after some time the information content becomes too large to remember, so that the reader has to keep flipping back the pages. In the same way, regions like amygdala and hypothalamus are introduced and explained adequately, and quite understandably the terms are simply used later throughout the book. However, if the reader is going through the book very slowly, which is quite common for science, popular science and non-fiction books, they may have difficulty recalling what the particular region was about. In this case also, the readers would require to go back to the page where it was introduced. In Kindle format, I do not see any way out. However, in paperback format, a summary diagram can be provided. One way to do this is to devote two pages after the Contents and before the first chapter. A diagram of the brain with different regions labelled can be presented on the right hand side page and a complete list of the various regions, and the various roles they play can be given on the left page. This would make it much easier for the reader to go through the book.

At some places, the book indeed becomes too difficult to follow e.g., the last few pages of the first two chapters (fear and memory). In few other instances, the discussion becomes too long than is perhaps required, leading to the reader losing thread of the discussion e.g., the discussion on serotonin and dopamine. In fact, occasionally the writer himself acknowledges the involved and complicated nature of the subject. I understand that the subject itself is quite complicated and the writer has indeed done a good job of simplifying to a great extent. That the description is still very difficult shows the complexity of the subject and not the inadequacy of the writer. Still, the writer could have used analogies to explain the complicated theories. In fact, he does utilize such means occasionally. For example, to illustrate the different stages of sleep in the discussion Measuring sleep with the EEG, he gives examples of people in an auditorium engaged in conversation and of chanting by Gregorian monks. I agree that giving analogy for each and every concept is impractical, but for the more complex concepts, this method could have been further used. Note that most of these concepts and the terms noted in preceding paragraph must be trivial and elementary for researchers working in the field of neuroscience. However, for the people who are not familiar with this field, following such discussion and remembering the names could be an uphill task. And anyhow, neuroscientists would not read this book, as most probably they do not need it. Instead, laypersons would be more interested in this work, more so for the growing interest in the field among the community. And it is these readers that the book should strive to address.

My opinion? Ratings by different critics would differ. As I said, this book is a mixed bag, with certain sections very easy to follow and some very difficult. However, one thing is certain — after you have finished reading this book, you would be better informed and feel glad at having learned something new and useful. You would wonder how could you take this most important part of your body for granted. No, this book doesn’t teach you everything on this subject, but it will certainly give you a solid, reliable and intelligent foundation. After that, all those newspaper and TV reports on neuroscience research would start making sense to you.

But yes, you the reader will also have to put in some effort. You cannot simply lie back and hope that all the knowledge would seep into your mind like vitamin D from sunlight. You cannot, and it means absolutely cannot, read this book while going to sleep. It is not very difficult to follow; however, you need to stay alert, active and attentive. The advantages are not just academic in nature; in fact, certain sections e.g., usage of electronic devices, effects of exercise and caffeine, understanding depression and addiction could be immediately used to modify your lifestyle.

I would recommend this book to my colleagues and friends, and specially to the students in my group.

I was given a copy of this book for purpose of review

I found the book to be easy to understand and to follow the information on how the brain works.I was glad to find that the memory assistance apps just teach you how to play memory assistance apps, nothing more as i expected.

My mom would have been disappointed to learn that yes, i can sit close to the TV and not go blind, eye strain yes but not blind. The author does a excellent job of explaining parts of the brain with images and easy to follow explanations.

I had studied the brain while ion college and this book explained many issues that I never heard before. Very much worth reading and very enjoyable.

A fascinating and informative read. Your Brain Explained comprises of chapters dedicated to different topics such as learning, memory, sleep, etc. Each chapter contains an interesting case relevant to the designated topic and is often accompanied by basic illustration and anatomy. The writing style is easy to understand and follow. Plus, the diagrams are a great addition. The only thing that detracted from my reading experience was how certain words were disjointed (for example, like this: he – llo) throughout the text although, I think that may just be with my device.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable read and I’d recommend this book for people who are interested in neuroscience and/or popular science.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A pretty informative read on what’s going on in our brains, I found this book to be a good introduction to the topic: it doesn’t go too deep into complex science, but it also provides enough to be interesting even if, like me, you already know a little. What I already knew was there, so that’s consolidated knowledge for me, and what I didn’t, well, now I have new things to mull over.

On top of anatomy, the author also covers current (and past) research about the brain—apparently, there was a time when people found it OK to experiment on dogs’ brains without anaesthetising the poor pups—as well as brain chemistry and pharmacology. Several case studies, usually found at the beginning of each chapter, illustrate each topic, the latter ranging from language to memory, from addiction to fear, and more. The part about sleep especially interested me, due to my own difficulties with that—I knew that I shouldn’t drink coffee too late in the day (in my family, we used to say “never after 1 pm”) but now I also know that it’s because of caffeine’s long half-life, and putting numbers on this definitely helps enforce the point.

One mistake I made with this book, though, was to not always read it at the right moments. So don’t be like me, don’t read it right before bed when you’re already half-asleep. It won’t do it justice. (I basically had to read a couple of chapters again the next day to make sure I’d get everything. It’s not complicated writing or concepts, but that’s on a fully awake brain, right!)

Conclusion: A strong “introduction”, that actually also has good nuggets for people who have some knowledge on the topic.

I took an introductory neuroscience class about 15 years ago, but this book explained some concepts better and more clearly than what I recall from the class. The author really loves this topic, and that shines through. Each unusual case that sheds some tiny bit of light is presented with enthusiasm and respect. There are a number of aspects of the brain's functions that can't presently be fully explained, but in reading this book, you gain confidence that perhaps someday we will understand our minds even better.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC.

Fascinating and informative
The author has found that sweet spot between explaining clearly without loads of technical jargon but not to cross the line and be condescending.
Within the book there are “case studies” / stories to provide a basis of what the science is and these really help make it a book that is informative and still enjoyable to read

Different from, but as good as, “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons”

I recently read Sam Kean’s “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons” and loved it. I think Kean is a great science writer so I did not think that Marc Dingman’s book could compete with it. I was wrong. I enjoyed the Dingman book as much as the Kean book. The styles of the two books are different, not surprisingly, since Dingman is a neuroscientist and Kean isn’t so they each have their own perspectives. Kean’s book is a little lighter than Dingman’s, but Dingman makes up for it with more thorough explanations. There is overlap between the two books, in content and approach, but since the writing styles are different, both books are worth reading. I cannot recommend one over the other, but you can do what I did, and read both. It will be worth it.

Dingman's book "Your Brain, Explained" can be somewhat textbooky, but it is a fairly good primer on the brain and introduction to neuroscience. The best part of the book is the illustrations, showing which part of the brain and its functions is being discussed in the chapter, and the true-to-life descriptions of brain injuries and diseases.

Dingman discusses how every discovery about the brain (for instance, possible causes of depression, or Attention-Deficit Disorder) causes the pharmaceutical industry to leap in with both feet with pills, and then the cause-and-effect turns out to be a lot more complex than the initial studies on the brain indicate, and not located precisely in one part of the brain or associated with a single brain function. This should give the consumer questions to ask a doctor prescribing a new psychoactive drug, such as "does this drug perform better than placebo in a randomized controlled trial?"

The section of the book on addiction is very informative.

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and was encouraged to submit a review.

4.75 mind-blown stars ★★★★✬

This book is for you if… you want to address your thirst for peculiarities. You will learn about extreme cases of brain-malfunction and interesting hypotheses about how the brain works. Be ready to be mind-blown

This was literally me throughout the entire book. I couldn't stop telling people about all the stuff I learned. I'm sure they wanted me to shut up at one point, but this woman has stuff to share, y'all.
‘Studies linked endorphin release to an array of things ranging from exercising intensely, to eating chocolate to petting dogs.’

I mean, this is why I love science. My obsession with dogs is nothing but an attempt at preserving happiness. Dark chocolate, although rich in calories, is also highly nutritious and I love nothing more than hitting the gym after a long Tuesday to lift some weights (except reading, duh).

Of course, the information above - although greatly affirmative - is among the least enlightening things I learned from this book:
⤐ Have you ever wondered what's behind people who suddenly lose their ability to read but are still able to write?
⤐ Did you know there's a syndrome called prosopagnosia, which causes people to be unable to differentiate faces from one another?
⤐ Have you heard of the baby that bit its own fingers to the bones because it didn't feel pain?


Well, If any of the above catches your attention, you better get your cute, nerdy butt to the library or an independent bookstore and order this baby.

Marc's writing style is very down to earth and understandable. He's very critical of dubious medicinal methods and the theories that are prominent in his field. I liked him especially from the moment on he made clear that those who consider an addiction a fitting consequence of poor judgment are a) heartless pricks and b) have absolutely no idea about the human brain.

⤐ The book is structured as follows.
Introduction

1 FEAR
2 MEMORY
3 SLEEP
4 LANGUAGE
5 SADNESS
6 MOVEMENT
7 VISION
8 PLEASURE
9 PAIN
10 ATTENTION

Written by a neuroscientist, this book explains how the human brains work - and the conditions that cause it not to function properly. In addition to just providing facts, the author also gives tips on how to deal with or even avoid certain mental issues (such as insomnia). Fascinating read and very enjoyable.

Some of the fantastic things the brain does that we rely on to survive (fear, memory, sleep, language, sadness, pain, pleasure, movement, vision) and – frankly – take for granted are divided into chapters and then clearly discussed often using examples of famous patients whose experiences have allowed doctors and scientists to discover how things can all go horribly wrong. Long held beliefs are being shown to need further clarification and researchers are realizing the brain has many tricks and mysteries up its sleeves – so to speak. There’s what we know, what we know we don’t know, and the unknown unknown.

I think you managed to avoid presenting the information in either too technical terms or conversely dumbing things down. It’s complex stuff, sure, but written with elegant simplicity and some nifty diagrams. You’ve made this informative and – better still – fun. It’s also timely in many ways as chapters are linked to current medical issues confounding us – memory with Alzheimer’s, pleasure with the opioid addiction, movement with Parkinson’s, and why not feeling either pain or fear can be bad things for humans. Knowledge will increase or be changed as we learn more about this fantastic organ we rely so heavily on but this is a darn good introduction to begin understanding what we know today. B

The author wrote a book about brain function that is easy to understand for anyone that reads it, as he wrote in simple to understand terms. The information he presented was really interesting, as well!

An easy to digest book about neuroscience. Each chapter is a different subject (fear, memory, attention) and discusses the brain processes relating to it as well as disorders that can be caused by a problem in those areas of the brain. I enjoyed this. It was interesting and informative. Four stars.

I absolutely enjoyed this book. As a nurse specializing in Neurology, this book will always remain to be a resource for me. It is a read that I feel even non - medical would love to read and learn from. This book covers every detail of the functioning of the brain and I thought that it thoroughly explained the functionality of this very complex organ. The topics covered in the Chapters are: Fear and the Amygdala, Memory and Alzheimer's, Sleep, Language and the Wernicke, Sadness and the Limbic System, Movement and the motor cortex and cerebellum, Vision, Pleasure and dopamine, Pain and Attention. The chapters begin with real life examples and case studies, latest research and even debunking some myths. I feel that the book is well organized and I appreciated the pictures that were added to help explain the location in the brain. This was definitely not a one sitting type of a read and it does get complex and some topics more difficult. I find that I did need to read this in small chunks and took plenty of notes. Again, this is a great resource and good to read through in the beginning and then go back to further understand each area of the topics presented. Thank you for writing such a thorough review about a very amazing and complex organ.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nicholas Brealey Pub and author Marc Dingman for the copy of this amazing book.

Amazing book that goes over areas of the brain; excellent for those that want to tip their toe into neuroscience without getting a text book and a headache.. This is a wonderful dream of a book that just keeps piling on the fascinating with each chapter.

Sometimes books like this have a tendancy to get bogged down in the finer points of the science and technical and scientific terms and are inaccessible for the casual interested reader, however this I found relatively easy to follow and extremely absorbing ! The book is fairly short and for anyone interested in this area without any knowledge of the subject then I would recommend

It’s fascinating to think that everything we know, everything we feel, our entire sense of self, our connection to humanity and the insights from the generations that have come before us, is the result of electrical activity spiking in a wrinkled 3 pound mass of cells that lives in the dark and cushioned recesses provided by our skulls.

More accessible than most of the books that are available on this subject, the author of “Your Brain, Explained” - neuroscientist and professor Marc Dingman, PHD- does a fabulous job at unpacking some of the deepest mysteries behind our brains and how they do their magical work.

The book is organized in chapters based on core brain functions, casting a very wide net including: language, memory, sleep, sadness, fear, pain, pleasure, movement, vision and attention. Drawing on the latest scientific knowledge, the author covers brain structure, neurotransmitters, and the networks and connections required to support each function, as well as debunking related myths along the way. Each chapter is augmented by interesting, (and sometimes downright eerie) case studies of patients with specific brain injuries caused by stroke or illness that have helped scientist identify and correlate affected brain areas to corresponding loss of function. Similar to a tiny version of the wonderful works of Oliver Sacks, (who was and still is, one of my literary heroes) I found these case histories incredibly engaging, not to mention perfectly suited to serve as the introduction to the scientific insights provided on the topic.

We are learning much about the brain, and at the same time learning more about what we still need to learn. Dingman’s basic premise is that the brain is much more complex than originally thought, and early theories that attempted to simplify brain functions to a single neurotransmitter or brain network are rapidly losing favor. Even this book, with its well-crafted and expert smattering of research and insight will likely prove itself obsolete before too long.

I loved this book, and found its well written and easily digestible content in a subject that is typically so impenetrable a breath of fresh air. I recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in a fascinating tour of current neuroscience, written entirely for the layperson.

A big thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an advance review copy of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Note re Trigger Warnings: Unfortunately, many early brain studies were structured around pinpointing impact after the creation of horrific brain injuries in animals, a process which is thankfully no longer deemed ethical. The results of most of these studies are covered at only a high level in this book, however the author provided a warning for one section of this book involving motor cortex experiments on dogs which was several pages long, and at his direction, I skipped this section. The book also contains one case study involving child abuse, as well as a detailed discussion on depression.

Your Brain, Explained was an overview and studies on how they brain works. As someone who is fascinated with the brain and it's functions, I found this to be interesting but not overly in-depth. It was enjoyable easy read. If you have interest in neuroscience, this is a great start.




#brain #neuroscience #Netgalleyarc

This isn't so much an overview of neuroscience as a series of case studies that illustrate how different parts of the brain work. It was fascinating and easy to read. I was sorry when it ended. I hope the author will produce a second book on the subject.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Well written and easy to read - perfect for the layperson, even the informaton about neuroscience is written in a way that you can understand if you don't yet have any understanding about the brain.

I've studied psychology, so some of this was a reminder of what I already knew; some of it contained newer information and research since I studied the subject, and some of it was completely new to me.

If you're at all interested in how your brain works, this is worth a read.

Sleep. Memory. Pleasure. Fear. Language. We experience these things every day, but how do our brains create them?

Your Brain, Explained is a personal tour around your gray matter. Neuroscientist Marc Dingman gives you a crash course in how your brain works and explains the latest research on the brain functions that affect you on a daily basis.

You'll also discover what happens when the brain doesn't work the way it should, causing problems such as insomnia, ADHD, depression, or addiction. You'll learn how neuroscience is working to fix these problems, and how you can build up your defenses against the most common faults of the mind.

Along the way you'll find out:

· Why brain training games don't prevent dementia

· What it's like to remember every day of your life as if it were yesterday

· Which popular psychiatric drug was created from German rocket fuel

· How you might unknowingly be sabotaging your sleep

Drawing on the author's popular YouTube series, 2-minute Neuroscience, this is a friendly, engaging introduction to the human brain and its quirks from the perspective of a neuroscientist--using real-life examples and the author's own eye-opening illustrations. Your brain is yours to discover!
A fascinating read which I fully recommend

This was a really interesting book - I am really interested in the human body and especially the brain and i loved this, its such an easy read for those who are not into the science jargon!

Discover your brain with this mindblowing book.

In Your Brain neuroscientist Marc Dingman explains the work of brain and how brain function affects you on a daily basis.
Is it fascinanting or is it scary when you think about how everything we feel and know is a product of electrical activity spiking?
And what happens when the brain doesn't work how it should? One can be affected with problems like insomnia, ADHD, depression, or addiction.
With chapters like language, memory, sleep, sadness, fear, pain, pleasure, movement, vision and attention reader gets to learn and get to know its own brain.

I loved reading this! This book was entirely readable for someone without any neuroscience background and I could understand pretty much everything. I liked how it was structured with each chapter opening with an example of what an extreme case of neuroscience gone wrong in someone's brain can look like, and from there it explained how the particular phenomenon (fear, pain, vision, etc) works normally. I won't pretend like I now know everything I read here but it's certainly a fun book to go back to in case I want to remember something specific. So I would say if you have any interest in how your brain works this is certainly the book to read even if you don't have any previous background.

So, here is actually a non-fiction book adjacent to my degree that I loved. The tone was open about the scientific method and not sensationalist. It explained complex biological processes in a simplified and illustrative way but not needlessly dumbed down. I learned quite a bit and saw some progress since my 101 lectures at uni. Certainly not a book you will gulp down in one sitting but very readable with a good information density.
The title image does not do it justice.

A really interesting insight to the brain which is easy for readers to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in health/healthcare or anatomy.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I am really interested in neuroscience and this book was perfect to me! It tells you super interesting facts in an easy way and never gets boring. For anyone that’s interested in this topic, this is a must-read!
I really liked the way of writing and highlighted a lot! And I’m also really grateful that Dingman gives us a better understanding of science.