Innate

How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are

By: Kevin J. Mitchell

Narrated by: Michael Page

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

A leading neuroscientist explains why your personal traits are more innate than you think.

What makes you the way you are - and what makes each of us different from everyone else? In Innate, leading neuroscientist and popular science blogger Kevin Mitchell traces human diversity and individual differences to their deepest level: in the wiring of our brains.

Deftly guiding us through important new research, including his own groundbreaking work, he explains how variations in the way our brains develop before birth strongly influence our psychology and behavior throughout our lives, shaping our personality, intelligence, sexuality, and even the way we perceive the world.

We all share a genetic program for making a human brain, and the program for making a brain like yours is specifically encoded in your DNA. But, as Mitchell explains, the way that program plays out is affected by random processes of development that manifest uniquely in each person, even identical twins.

The key insight of Innate is that the combination of these developmental and genetic variations creates innate differences in how our brains are wired - differences that impact all aspects of our psychology - and this insight promises to transform the way we see the interplay of nature and nurture.

©2018 Princeton University Press (P)2018 HighBridge Company

chapter 12

Highly detailed, scholarly and very interesting with an excellent narration. Plenty of references for further research.

Didn’t Disappoint

I listened to the author’s book on free will and really enjoyed it and so decided to listen to this. I’m glad I did. It was a bit harder to follow in some sections, but overall it was very clear. I especially like the author’s recap of his main points. The author’s final message on accepting others was great too. Worth reading/listening to.

a comprehensive treatment

If you don't follow the discussion of neurology, heritability, and behavior, this might be a bit dense for a primer. However if you are even moderately familiar, this book will provide a synthesized and thorough review. It covers most topics well, from intelligence to neuro psychological disorders, and provides all the appropriate caveats on how this science can be misunderstood or misused. The ending is a tad unsatisfying, in it that it quickly tries to sum up key points while also keeping the author out of political hot water, which wasn't necessary in my opinion, given the thoroughness of the approach throughout.

Excellent overview.

This is an excellent overview of a subject that perturbs the thinking of many, perhaps most people. The state of knowledge in this field has come in a rush in recent decades, and I am grateful for this rigorous general update.

Very informative

Very informative, love his personal opinion part at the end of the book. This Book starts dry but it get interesting after fist chapter.
I am neither a scientist nor science a student. I guess I have some background college in biology on during my youth . Now I am 47 and suddenly interested in brains and it’s function.. The audible and long commute in los angles helped lessened to lots of great books about the subject.This book was certainly one of those great books.

content interesting delivery lacking

why is it that good content is often over shadowed by a weak performance? otherwise strongly recommend