States of Mind

Description

An all-star lineup of scientists takes you to the front lines of brain research.

Are we born to be shy? Why do we remember some events so clearly and others not at all? Are creativity and depression somehow linked? Do our dreams really have deeper meanings?

Now in paperback, here is a wonderfully accessible introduction to the most important recent findings about how our health, behavior, feelings, and identities are influenced by what goes on inside our brains. In this timely book, eight pioneering researchers offer lively and stimulating discussions on the most exciting discoveries as well as a new way of understanding our emotions, moods, memories, and dreams. Inside, you'll find:
* J. ALLAN HOBSON, author of the groundbreaking The Dreaming Brain, leading a tour of dream states and explaining why we dream and what dream studies reveal about our minds
* ERIC KANDEL, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine, taking us along the chain of biological events that create long-term memories, revealing how we stand at the brink of helping those who suffer from grave mental and memory disorders
* STEVEN HYMAN, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, tracing the links between nature and nurture, particularly in addiction and mental illness, to explain the relationship between inherited tendencies and the impact of life experience
* KAY REDFIELD JAMISON, bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind, explaining manic depression, its prevalence among gifted artists, writers, and musicians, and the societal questions raised by trying to eradicate the "depression gene"


. . . and much, much more. Whether discussing the brain-body connection, the sources of emotion, or the ethereal world of dreams, States of Mind enables you to share in the very latest explorations into the nature and function of the human mind.
Foreword (D. Mahoney).

Introduction (R. Conlan).

Susceptibility and "Second Hits" (S. Hyman).

Born to Be Shy? (J. Kagan).

A Magical Orange Grove in a Nightmare: Creativity and Mood Disorders (K. Jamison).

Stress and the Brain (B. McEwen).

Emotions and Disease: A Balance of Molecules (E. Sternberg).

The Power of Emotions (J. LeDoux).

Of Learning, Memory, and Genetic Switches (E. Kandel).

Order from Chaos (J. Hobson).

Notes.

Index.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Neuropsychology
• Psychology

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 10 août 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470248034
• Langue: English

Extrait

STATES OF MIND
STATES OF MIND
NEW DISCOVERIES ABOUT HOW OUR BRAINS MAKE US WHO WE ARE
Adapted from the original talks by
J. Allan Hobson Steven Hyman
Jerome Kagan Eric Kandel
Joseph LeDoux Bruce McEwen
Kay Redfield Jamison Esther Sternberg
at the Smithsonian Associates-Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives lecture series, Understanding the Human Psyche
Edited by Roberta Conlan

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
NEW YORK CHICHESTER WEINHEIM BRISBANE SINGAPORE TORONTO
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 1999 by The Dana Press. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without either the prior written permission of the Publisher or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], E-Mail:[e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
States of mind: new discoveries about how our brains make
us who we are / edited by Roberta Conlan; with contributions by J. Allan Hobson . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-29963-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-471-39973-6 (paper : alk. paper)
1. Neuropsychology-Popular works. I. Conlan, Roberta. II. Hobson, J. Allan.
[DNLM: 1. Psychophysiology. 2. Brain-physiology. 3. Emotions-physiology. WL 103U55 1999]
QP360.U526 1999
612.8 2-dc21
DNLM/DLC
for Library of Congress
98-11719
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
C ONTENTS

Foreword
David J. Mahoney

Introduction
Roberta Conlan
1 Susceptibility and Second Hits
Steven Hyman
2 Born to Be Shy?
Jerome Kagan
3 A Magical Orange Grove in a Nightmare: Creativity and Mood Disorders
Kay Redfield Jamison
4 Stress and the Brain
Bruce McEwen
5 Emotions and Disease: A Balance of Molecules
Esther Sternberg
6 The Power of Emotions
Joseph LeDoux
7 Of Learning, Memory, and Genetic Switches
Eric Kandel
8 Order from Chaos
J. Allan Hobson

Notes
Index
F OREWORD
What can science tell us about ourselves? These days, the amount of information is unprecedented. It seems that every morning we read of new genes discovered, new explanations about how our minds and bodies work. New treatments for various disorders-and new disorders. Making sense of it all is quite a challenge. Are we the sum of our genes or the result of our childhood experiences? Do our moods spring from our thoughts or from the biochemical goings-on in our brains? Can stress and unhappiness really make us physically ill?
In States of Mind: New Discoveries about How Our Brains Make Us Who We Are, eight visionary scientists lead us into a new appreciation of both the mental and biological aspects of our humanness. This book began as a series of public lectures, cosponsored by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the Smithsonian Associates in 1997 in Washington, D.C. The talks were adapted, with the scientists help, to make up the chapters you are about to read.
These splendid scientists make us understand how the qualities that define us-our memories and emotions, our ways of coping with situations, the brew of attributes that we think of as personality-can be unique and intangible. And yet, behind these images of ourselves is another dimension. Groundbreaking research, in which these investigators are pioneers, is revealing how our inner lives are brought into being by the tireless, intricately coordinated, biological activity of the brain. Both the intangible and the concrete work together, both influence each other, and both determine our health-or lack of it. As science begins to embrace this relationship, the implications are life-changing.
For everyone who delights in discovering what s beneath the surface, States of Mind offers a new way of thinking about the mind and the self. For example, one way to identify ourselves is through our experiences and memories. We learn in these pages how research is revealing the steps by which newly acquired information enters the brain and is transferred into permanent storage in the very cells devoted to memory. Sometimes emotions take precedence; we can all think of someone whose every reaction seems to be an emotional one. This book will explain how a frightening event can follow pathways deep in the brain and emerge, even years later, as an inexplicable feeling of dislike for someone or something.
The research discussed here also gives us a new way to look at illness, both mental and physical. As you will see, even disorders can be difficult to separate from the unique life of the mind. But what of problems we deem physical, like bacterial infection, heart problems, or allergies? Doctors and patients alike have always known that stressful circumstances can leave someone more vulnerable to disease. But until recently, the physiology of that phenomenon was unknown. Now the picture is becoming clearer as evidence reveals the interconnections between the brain, the stress response, and the immune system. When thrown out of balance, this collaboration can produce stress-related illnesses.
As understanding deepens regarding the brain s anatomy and circuitry, as we learn more about the brain s activity that goes into mood, thought, and even personality, it s important to remember that we are more than a series of biochemical exchanges. Why does one fact and not another make the jump into long-term memory? Why can we feel devastated by one crisis yet take another one in stride? These questions are still in the realm of the unknown, and may well stay there. Because of the interpretations performed by our individual minds, the world we live in is entirely our own. By offering glimpses into how these processes work, States of Mind takes us deeper into that world.
I would like to thank the Smithsonian Associates for their collaboration with the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives in the lecture series that gave rise to this book-a series they have done in each of the past three years to ever-growing audiences. As I write this, the Dana Alliance is approaching its sixth anniversary, an organization of 175 of the nation s leading brain researchers, including six Nobel laureates, all committed to communicating the discoveries of brain research to the public. Two years ago, 65 of Europe s top neuroscientists, including two Nobel winners, formed the European Dana Alliance for the Brain to provide the same information in their countries. And in March 1999, there will be a merging of National Brain Awareness Week, involving hundreds of participating organizations from across the United States who have been involved for the last four years, and European Brain Day, the successful first-ever such celebration in Europe in 1998. We hope you will think of this book as our, and your, salute to that merger-the first World Brain Awareness Week. Even more, we hope this book will mark the beginning of a never-ending journey of discovery and wonder for you into the marvels of the organ that makes you uniquely you: your brain.
David J. Mahoney
Chairman, Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives
September 1998
I NTRODUCTION
Every day, in the course of ordinary conversation, we use a very small word that we learn early in life. The word is I. We say things like I think so or I don t remember or I have a headache. And then there s Mark Twain, who wrote, I have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
Beneath the wry joke, Twain was expressing an element of bemused wonder-or exasperation-that many of us might share. Human beings have always wondered, in some fashion, about the self, or consciousness, that seems to inhabit the body we identify as ours and that experiences the world out there. Who (or what), exactly, is the ubiquitous I who so readily thinks, remembers, and feels pain? And where in relation to that I is the mind that can t be made up?
Although we generally manage to carry on without worrying too much about such philosophical conundrums, most of us, at some point in our lives, have been drawn-if not consumed-by the need to know who we are and to understand how we come by our identity and why we feel and behave the way we do. We question how much we owe to (or can blame on) the set of genes we inherited, to what extent we are the product of the circumstances in which we grew up, and how much is within our own control. When we say of a child, She s got a temper, just like her dad! are we reflecting on an innate, inherited characteristic, or on behavior learned from a parent?
Far from being academic, these questions and the answers we seek not only bear on the quality of our relationships with family and friends but also have implications for how we function as a society. To what extent is a bad temper, for example, or an inability to find joy in life, a function of will, and to what extent are they the products of the complex interaction between our genes and our environment? The two debates-over what has been called the mind-body problem and over nature versus nurture -have engaged philosophers and physicia