John J. Ratey – A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theatres of the Brain

John J. Ratey – A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theatres of the Brain

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John Ratey, bestselling author and clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, 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.Editorial ReviewsAmazon.com ReviewBefore consulting with customer service, it’s always a good idea to read the manual. Psychiatrist John Ratey has condensed years of research on one of the most intimidating yet ubiquitous pieces of hardware in the world into the ever-handy User’s Guide to the Brain. More intellectually stimulating than day-to-day practical, the Guide uses tales from Ratey’s practice and other clinical venues, tidbits from neuroscientific research, and plain common sense to suggest how the brain develops and manifests personality and behavior. With section titles like “Free Will and the Anterior Cingulate Gyrus,” many readers will feel intimidated, but Ratey is careful to direct his explanations to all–even those without a PhD in neuroanatomy. His interesting four-theater theory of mental function is the most directly practical section of the book, incorporating the author’s years of experience with patients into a sensible framework that readers can use to better tune their own systems. Describing the changing of the guard from psychoanalysis to a more biological paradigm, Ratey writes:Neuroscientists have, in a sense, simply taken over the elite, almost clerical office once held by analysts. The language used to describe the brain is, if anything, more opaque than any of the old psychoanalytic terminology, which was itself so obscure that only trained professionals could wade through the literature. Most people never even bother to learn such terminology, deeming that, like the language of the computer scientists of the early 1970s, it is better left to the nerds.Determined to help us overcome our sense of helplessness in matters cranial, Ratey has shown that we can understand ourselves better and can learn quite a bit from the nerds. –Rob LightnerFrom Library JournalNew developments in brain research seem to be constantly announced these days, so a competent description of the latest results for the lay reader is always welcome. Ratey, a specialist in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, organizes his material by functional categoryDdevelopment, perception, attention, memory, emotion, language, and socialization. The “Four Theaters” of the subtitle don’t appear until the penultimate chapter, where the metaphor is confusingly mixed with that of the brain as a river. The final chapter, “Care and Feeding,” makes the expected suggestions for keeping the brain sharp: physical and mental exercise, good nutrition, and the positive impact of spirituality on mental health. Pierce J. Howard’s The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research (Bard Pr., 2000. 2d ed.) is a better choice, although A User’s Guide would be an acceptable addition for larger public libraries.

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