Neuroscience Evolution

Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. In Free Agents, leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines responding to physical forces but agents acting with purpose.

Unlock the Hidden Blueprint of Human Growth with the Most Comprehensive History of Personal Development Ever Written For centuries, seekers, philosophers, teachers, and visionaries have passed down ideas that shaped the way humans pursue happiness, wealth, wisdom, and inner mastery. Yet never before has there been a single work that traces the entire lineage of personal development schools of thought — past, present, and future — in one authoritative volume. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Benoit Tano unearths every stream of influence, from 18th-century pioneers and New Thought ...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists...

Why do minds exist? How did mud and stone develop into beings that can experience longing, regret, love, and compassion - beings that are aware of their own experience? Until recently, science offered few answers to these existential questions. Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, the Self, and civilization emerged incrementally out of chaos.

The extraordinary story of how the human brain evolved… and is still evolving. We’ve come a long way. The earliest human had a brain as small as a child’s fist; ours are four times bigger, with spectacular abilities and potential we are only just beginning to understand. This is...

A narcoleptic's tireless journey through the neuroscience of disordered sleep Whether it's a bout of bad jet lag or a stress-induced all-nighter, we've all suffered from nights that left us feeling less than well-rested. But for some people, getting a bad night's sleep isn't just an...

Just over 125,000 years ago, humanity was going extinct until a dramatic shift occurred—Homo sapiens started tracking the tides in order to eat the nearby oysters. Before long, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink of extinction. What saved us during that period of endangerment? The...

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.

In this eye-opening work, Graziano accessibly explores how this sense of an inner being led to empathy and formed us into social beings. The theory may point the way to engineers for building consciousness artificially. Graziano discusses what a future with artificial consciousness might be like, including both advantages and risks, and what AI might mean for our evolutionary future.

Minding the Climate investigates this problem in the neuroscience of decision-making. Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, points to the evolution of the human brain during eons of resource scarcity. The brain adapted to prioritize short-term survival over more uncertain long-term outcomes. But the resulting behavioral architecture is poorly suited to the present, when scarcity is a lesser concern and slow-moving challenges like environmental issues present the greatest danger.

Dr. Dino Martins, an awarding-winning entomologist of Kenya's Turkana Basin, where life was born, unspools the hidden, squirming world of parasites—some of the most misunderstood, and important, creatures with whom we share the Earth (and our bodies!). “May this tusk root out the lice of the...

Three books in one! Title 1: Why do we have phobias? Why can they be so intense and irrational? Is there a difference between being afraid of something, and having a phobia of it? Are there any signs to indicate a phobia? What exactly is manic depression? What causes Tourette’s Syndrome? Title 2: Hallucinations are sensations that are perceived as real, when in reality, they are not. Learn about the myths and truths that surround bulimia. Title 3: Learn about aphasia, the amygdala, anorexia, the inner thought process, and testosterone.

Each of us has a protected zone two or three feet wide, swelling around the head and narrowing toward the feet. This zone isn't fixed in size: If you're nervous, it grows; if you're relaxed, it shrinks. It also depends on your cultural upbringing. Personal space is small in Japan and large in Australia. This safety zone, called personal space, provides an invisible spatial scaffold that frames our social interactions.

'A fascinating exploration of how our ancient brains are mismatched for our modern ecosystem, and what we can do about it.' ANNA LEMBKE, MD, AUTHOR OF DOPAMINE NATION 'Shines a light on the complexity of the human brain and our resulting behaviours in an exciting and accessible way. This is a...

A Harvard researcher investigates the human eye in this insightful account of what vision reveals about intelligence, learning, and the greatest mysteries of neuroscience. Spotting a face in a crowd is so easy, you take it for granted. But how you do it is one of science's great mysteries. And...

John Parrington draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at a molecular and cellular level. And he argues that this 'shift', enlarging the brain, giving it greater flexibility and enabling higher functions such as imagination, was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool - language.

Title 1 - Phobias - those irrational fears that so many possess, but why do we have them, and what makes them so intense? What about manic depression - what causes that disorder? Also, what about Tourette's Syndrome? What's going on in its corner of neurological disorders?

Hallucinations, everyone’s heard of them, but most don’t know the full extent and there are a lot of preconceived ideas and stereotypes out there. Emotional resilience is another thing that most people don’t really understand, as it’s not as well known. Bulimia is something that is more well known, but is the knowledge you possess accurate? Brain cancer, something no one wished existed. This guide will help shed some light on these subjects, and suggest/provide some treatment options.

Have you ever asked yourself, "What makes me, me?" From our ancestors pondering their reflections in ancient lakes to modern AI on the brink of self-recognition, the question of self and consciousness has always intrigued us. "Does Your Brain Need You?" takes you on a journey through the complexities of neuroscience and consciousness, raising vital questions: What is the self? Does your brain even need a "self"? What gives rise to our subjective experiences? How do we think, dream, feel, and make decisions? This book is your gateway to understanding: The mind-body connection The evolution ...

Darwin developed the theory of sexual selection to explain why the animal world abounds in stunning beauty, from the brilliant colors of butterflies and fishes to the songs of birds and frogs. He argued that animals have "a taste for the beautiful" that drives their potential mates to evolve features that make them more sexually attractive and reproductively successful. But if Darwin explained why sexual beauty evolved in animals, he struggled to understand how.