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Brain Myths Exploded  By  cover art

Brain Myths Exploded

By: The Great Courses, Indre Viskontas
Narrated by: Indre Viskontas
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Publisher's summary

Much of the layperson's knowledge of the brain is predicated on a lack of understanding about this mysterious organ. To start building a more straightforward, accurate understanding of current breakthroughs in neuroscience, you have to start by shattering popular brain myths.

Each of these 24 lectures takes as its focus a single powerful, prevalent brain myth, and uses it as a launch pad from which to explore myriad topics in neuroscience: decision making, memory, dreams, emotions, neuroplasticity, consciousness, mental illness, and much more.

Our memory is an accurate, objective record of the past. Our senses reflect the world as it really exists. Our dreams have hidden meanings. We are only using 10% of our total brain power. Modern technology (including social media) is making us less intelligent. Dr. Viskontas doesn't just settle for obliterating these and other myths. Instead, she replaces them with scientific facts gathered from experiments, research, and case studies. The result is an eye-opening adventure into the latest understanding of why the brain works the way it does.

Whatever order you enjoy these lectures in, you'll be left with insights that will help you better determine the hard scientific truths behind the breaking news (and myths) of tomorrow.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2017 The Great Courses

What listeners say about Brain Myths Exploded

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Great lecturer, very enjoyable

Having read and studied a lot in this area, I did not expect to learn many new fact, or busting of old myths, but in fact I did. And the things I already knew were explained in such an interesting way that I still enjoyed and benefited, will help me to explain things in future. No vocal fry, great speaking voice as well.

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152 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars

Well picked cherries from field of psychology

This series has little to do with 'myth busting' and more to do with a taste testing tour of many emerging and misunderstood areas in psychology. It's also less to about the brain and more about cognitive and behavioral psychology. Nevertheless, Indre does a brilliant job or surveying the literature and takes great care in refraining from pop psychology hyperbole and borrowing on the credibility of science to make her career. This book was not comprehensive on any topic but was masterfully succinct on many. I especially liked her tour of how technology impacts our attention and intelligence for good or bad. Other notable topics include our sleep and our ability to perform depending on it, how we use more than 10% of our brains, neuroplasticity, and cognitive biases. Overall, this series is a surprisingly pleasant treatise on psychology's latest findings that strays from its stated topic (brain myths) in a wonderful way.

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94 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Eye Opener

Every chapter was enlightening, informative, an eye-opener. It's the fastest I've finished an audiobook. And I think I wanna listen to it again. The narration was great too.

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65 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Political Views Ruin The Experience

Overall I enjoyed the lecture series though I was disappointed to find this lecturer used this as a platform to tout her political views.

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47 people found this helpful

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Answered several most intriguing questions

The lecture discussed several interesting topics about our brain like are bigger brains smarter, do you only use 10% of your brain, can you multitask efficiently, can adult brains change for better, and does technology make you stupid?
The whole lecture provided rich and profound information about our brains yet remained so funny and catching! Indeed learnt a lot!

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47 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

More entertainment than enlightenment

Dr. Viskontas is a gifted presenter and even performer. I envision the best place for this course is on a cruise, one of those fancy ships on a several day tour of the Danube, on which she entertains the passengers between ports. The actual data transmission is more on the high school level, but done in an entertaining way.

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41 people found this helpful

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Good for Neuro Beginners

This is a great introductory course to neuroscience. As an experienced learner of the subject, I did not find many new facts. If you are a novice and want a better description of how the brain works I would highly recommend

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39 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Replaces many books at once

This book spoiled some other books for me, which is a good thing. Having a deep understanding of your brain will help in many parts of your life. Many "tricks" I used became more useful, because I understood the reasoning better. The narrator is fun to listen to, and had fun narrating herself. Her enthusiasm was clearly audible.

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36 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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this was painful

the performance was awful, it felt like she was talking down to me as if I was an idiot, and the content felt more like reading a list of basic definitions out of an 8th grade science book than an in depth explanation

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27 people found this helpful

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I was looking for brain research

What I got was liberal philosophy and sociology. These are opinions. I was looking for facts.

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25 people found this helpful