Review: Mind Wide Open
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsAn enthusiastic invitation to explore your mind from science writer Johnson (Emergence, 2001, etc.), who takes a lucid trip through the country's brain labs. With the help of brain-imaging techniques and neurochemical analyses, the author believes, the tools are at hand to "open wide the mind's cage-door," as Keats put it. Johnson begins with biofeedback, used in lie-detector tests and in measuring brain wave activity. He quickly learns that anytime he makes a passing joke his adrenaline levels shoot up. He also learns that he can control selected brain-wave patterns and that some practitioners are using feedback devices to help kids with attention deficit disorder learn to focus. Johnson's quest for self-knowledge eventually leads him inside an MRI brain scanner, which shows a very focused medial frontal gyrus (high-level executive function) while he is experiencing a moment of writing creativity. As these self-revelations accumulate, Johnson articulates a modular theory of the brain. There are varieties of subsystems common to our evolutionary heritage, he states; how they are orchestrated is a function of our individual hereditary and lived experience. Emotional centers are critical, deepening memories and affecting cortical reasoning activities. For example, Johnson still feels queasy when he sees a clear blue sky, because that weather pattern was etched deep into his memory on September 11, 2001. Neurochemicals like serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, and sex hormones fuel all brain activities. Johnson explains their roles, offering an interesting aside on the "fight-or-flight" reaction to a threat, which applies to men but not necessarily to women, who may react to danger by seeking social support or "tending," especially if they need to protect offspring. Johnson concludes the text with arguments that neuroscience is not ultrareductionist, and that even Freudian ideas can be reconciled with today's insights. Celebrates the brain's complexity and wonder even as it demonstrates that you can get to know your mind better than you ever thought.
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Mark C. - GoodreadsSkimmed this. Excellent insights, very essayistic which was frustrating when I wanted information, facts and answers about the brain, not navel-gazing. The layout (or lack thereof) drove me crazy. Should be a tightly written 40 page article. Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Mohammad Abdelkhalek - Goodreadsthis book takes you on a journey through the reverse engineering of mind reading, adrenalin rushes, fear, love and attention, it gives non-scientists an idea of how the brain works though everyday ... Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Edna - Goodreadsvery interesting Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Michael Q - GoodreadsThe book starts out well and the author treats some neuro scientific topics very well eg neurofeedback and laughter. The later chapters aren't as strong. In the chapter 'Scan Thyself' the author seems ... Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Geof Morris - GoodreadsI would probably have rated this higher had I not previously read Eric Kandel's In Search of Memory, which was published later and covered many of these topics in greater detail with a higher degree ... Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Kristen - GoodreadsAfter I started this book, I started having Trigeminal Neuralgia and I actually needed to delve into some research that went a little deeper and more specific than this. It might have been an ... Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Laurel - GoodreadsThis is a fun read. The author breaks the brain into manageable chunks (figuratively speaking, of course), and talks about some "applied" functions of various structures. It's certainly written for ... Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - John Sorensen - GoodreadsGood solid information Read full review
Review: Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
User Review - Ann - GoodreadsIt tells why PSTD works the way it does--why our brain works why it does. Anything with the brain is just amazing, and this book is fun. Lots of info. Read full review
