Mind Matters: How Mind and Brain Interact to Create Our Conscious Lives

Examining mind-brain interactions in mental states such as anxiety, pain, dreams, depression, love, phobias, and obsessions, the author discusses the complicated way in which the mind interprets the chemical changes in the brain

Interaction between mental states and the physiochemical changes in our brains can dramatically alter mood and anxiety, as biofeedback researchers have shown. Gazzaniga carries this insight one step further. In his theory, much of what we feel and think is a kind of rationalization. Our mental condition reflects swings in brain chemistry triggered by physiology or genes, and a "left-brain interpreter" steps in to make sense of what we are experiencing on a bodily level. A cognitive scientist at Cornell University Medical Center, the author writes clearly and briskly. Though his report falls flat as a program for managing one's personal life, it contains suggestive insights on topics ranging from pain, depression, phobias and addiction to sleep, schizophrenia and intelligence.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The growth of neuroscience has increased the potential for bringing brain and mind studies together for a fuller understanding of behavior. Gazzaniga, who has done ground-breaking research on split-brained patients with epilepsy, uses his findings in discussing mind-brain phenomena such as pain, schizophrenia, depression, dreaming, memory, and healing. Some topics such as intelligence and addiction are controversial and will generate debate. The book is insightful, clearly written, and well organized. A good choice for armchair psychologists or anyone with questions about the human condition. Margery C. Coombs, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.